


In the Forests of the Night

by Fuzziestpuppy



Category: Far Cry (Video Games), Far Cry 4
Genre: Ajay as Kalinag, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Fanart, Ghostwari, M/M, Pagan as the Sky Tiger
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-08
Updated: 2019-07-30
Packaged: 2019-08-20 15:09:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 22,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16558085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fuzziestpuppy/pseuds/Fuzziestpuppy
Summary: Ajay Ghale keeps dreaming of a place he’s almost certain doesn’t actually exist, a place with a gold sky and red everything else.  It’s so beautiful and strange there, in his dreaming mind, but it’s lonely too.  He seems to be the only person in that world.Until he meets the tiger.





	1. Blood and Bells

**Author's Note:**

> The Shangri-La portions of Far Cry 4 were always some of my favorite parts of the game. As always, thanks to the amazing [brokibrodinson](https://archiveofourown.org/users/brokibrodinson/pseuds/brokibrodinson) for being an amazing beta and friend. 
> 
> Lynol created a fantastic piece of art for this fic, [here](https://twitter.com/lynolch/status/1055361204984508416) on her Twitter. Go check it out, she's made tons of awesome and adorable FC4 art! 
> 
> Note: Since this makes my second WIP currently going, this one is probably not going to update as quickly as [Red and Gold](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15937037) is. I tend to work more on one than the other, and here lately I’ve been in the mood for monsters and mech battles. Never fear though, I’ll be back in the mood for Shangri-La again soon!

***

 

Ajay Ghale keeps dreaming of a place he’s almost certain doesn’t actually exist: a place with a gold sky, and red everything else. Red leaves, red grass, even the water looks red. Looks uncomfortably like blood, to be honest. He doesn’t dream about that place every night, but he often wakes in his little apartment with a gasp, that place seemingly real enough to touch. Sometimes he even dreams about it when he sleeps at the hospital, which he’s been doing more and more.

His mom…she’s not getting any better.

The oddest thing about those dreams though, is not that they are recurring, which is strange and has never happened to him before, or the landscape, which is admittedly weird, but it’s how he…doesn’t seem to be quite himself in them. Always looks the same; barefoot and mostly naked except for a loincloth, swirls of white pigment across his own brown skin and it’s like he’s seeing it through someone else’s eyes, but he’s that person too.

In any case, it’s a magnificent and gorgeous landscape of statues and ancient temples and floating islands and giant iron bells. He never knows what he’s going to see there, actually looks forward to falling asleep and dreaming about it. He even sometimes sketches scenes from it in a notepad that he brings with him to the hospital to help pass the time, which gives him something to do with his hands; never realizing that if he had showed Ishwari, she could have told him exactly where and what it was.

It’s so beautiful and strange there, in his dreaming mind, but it’s lonely too. He seems to be the only person in that world.

Until he meets the tiger.

 

***

 

Blood, blood everywhere, draining into the red water, the two nearly indistinguishable.

Ajay had heard the tiger’s low growls before he’d seen it, limping heavily through the shallow red water and lily pads. _He’s from another world, too,_ a voice whispered inside his head, the way you just…know things in dreams sometimes.

As he gets closer, he sees how overwhelmingly _enormous_ the animal is; it nearly covers the large, flat rock it drops tiredly on. Weakly on. Beautiful gold-white fur, accented by an elaborate deep red and gold harness, ornaments gleaming in the soft light.

But it’s terribly injured, blood and gashes all over its pretty striped hide. He moves closer, then closer still, frightened; it’s obviously an animal in pain, and those giant paws could probably disembowel him without much effort. But he’s drawn to the tiger all the same, even sensing that danger.

Now that he’s near, Ajay can see the main problem…a strange dagger? Tooth? A spike of some kind, rough and dark and embedded deeply behind the tiger’s left shoulder. The other wounds seem to be fairly superficial. He reaches carefully and gently lays his fingers on it, and the massive head turns to him with a panting growl. The tiger’s eyes meet his, piercing.

“Just hold on,” he tells it, with a calm he doesn’t really feel. “I’m going to pull it out. Jesus, please, please don’t bite me…”

The tiger turns his head away. _Go on then, get on with it,_ he seems to mean. Ajay sucks in a breath and tugs hard, to get it all over with at once, and the tiger roars loud enough to hurt his ears a little…but it doesn’t attack him. Goes limp in fact, the huge head dropping onto the rock…and stops breathing.

“No! No, no…” he exclaims, which comes out on its own, his hand reaching out. He’s killed it without meaning to. Or it was dying already, and there was nothing to be done. The depth of the sorrow he feels surprises him, the bloody dagger still in his other hand.

Just before his outstretched fingers can touch down on soft fur, the corpse turns to ash, to white billowing smoke, and is gone in the breeze, so quickly. The only trace of its presence that remains is the blood on the rock, dripping down to meet the blood-colored water…that and a perfect set of claw marks on the edge of the soft stone.

Ajay, bewildered, touches those scratches. They’re wider than the span of his hand from outstretched pinky to outstretched thumb. He shivers, doesn’t know what to think. His sense of loss is confusingly profound, even though he spent less than two minutes with this tiger.

Maybe because it was the only living thing he’s seen here, and it all seems so very lonely.

 

Ajay continues to walk along the path, and he’s pretty sure he’s never seen this part of the place before. Some of the trees have been knocked over, and burnt. Some are still smoldering. He’s never seen that before either. There’s a clear path so he keeps following it, past candles and little shrines.

“Who lights all of these fucking candles?” he murmurs to himself in bemusement.

Just as he says that a shape springs at him in a cloud of blue smoke and knocks him flat on his ass. The…thing is man-shaped but scrawny and gray-blue, like something not so recently dead. Ajay recoils as it shrieks horribly, inhumanly and raises a giant knife high over him, ready to stab down into him. His fist tightens on the knife he pulled from the tiger, but he has no time to even raise it in defense…

…and the tiger lunges out of _nowhere_ with a roar and has its teeth embedded in the back of the thing’s neck lightning fast, huge claws grasping and dragging it away from him with a sharp shake that would break a buffalo’s neck, much less a person’s. Well, whether it’s a person or not is debatable, but in any case the thing dissolves back into a cloud of blue smoke, exactly as the tiger did. Ajay shakily gets to his feet.

The tiger merely looks at him. Ajay looks back.

It tucks its giant paws under itself neatly and sits down in front of him like an enormous dog, its fluffy, striped tail winding around its feet. It isn’t injured anymore, or even bloody.

“Hello,” says the tiger.

Ajay blinks.

“…um, hello,” Ajay says back. Although, this place is weird enough that he shouldn’t be surprised that this tiger came back from the dead to save him and is now talking to him. “I, uh, I thought you had died. I’m sorry I hurt you, I was trying to help…but thank you for saving me,” he tells it, still feeling a little silly for talking to it.

“Oh, don’t mention it, my boy. It seems as if I can’t actually die here in this place,” the tiger says, and his voice is smooth and urbane, the accent charmingly British. Ajay blinks at him again.

“Who are you? What’s your name?” Ajay asks him, scratching his own head in confusion.

“I…I don’t actually know, now that I think about it,” the tiger replies. “I can’t remember my name. It’s right here, right on the tip of my tongue,” he sticks out his bristly cat tongue for emphasis, which makes Ajay laugh, “but I just can’t remember at the moment. As for your other question, who I am,” he pauses, cocks his head to the side, also doglike, “well, that’s also difficult to remember. But, I think…I believe that sometimes I am a king.”

“A king?” Ajay stands and contemplates this. “Like, the kind with a throne and stuff?” The tiger nods, which is somehow stranger than it talking. Now that Ajay looks more closely, the headpiece that he’s wearing does look a little like a crown.

“I’m not always a tiger. Just here…I think. It’s all rather confusing, isn’t it, my boy?”

“Yeah, it sure is. My name’s…” and he doesn’t have it. Suddenly can’t remember. The tiger looks at him with a cheerfully expectant expression, which is also weird but makes sense if sometimes he’s a person.

“Ajay! My name is Ajay,” he says then, proud of himself for remembering, but he’s not sure why he said it the way his mom does. He usually just says AJ. Easier for people to say and remember.

“Hmmm, well…Ajay, it is very nice to meet you. Perhaps I will remember my own name at some later time.” He lifts a massive paw and holds it out as if to shake, seems to remember that he is, indeed, a six-hundred pound tiger, and withdraws it ruefully. Ajay laughs. This tiger guy is kind of funny. He gestures for the paw back and shakes it, huge and deceptively downy, the claws well-sheathed. It takes both of his hands to span just one of the tiger’s paws, and he has big hands.

“Well, shall we continue? We can travel together, if you like,” Ajay’s new friend says cheerfully. “You’re the first person I’ve seen, besides those…those things with the masks. Those motherfuckers I _bite,_ ” the tiger adds, snarling, low and suddenly full of venom, with a tigerish smile. Ajay really hopes that sentiment stays aimed at those things and never at him. The combination of the obscenity in that urbane voice and the venom and that sharp-edged _grin_  is seriously unnerving.

Even more unnerving is the fact that his face changes again, back to that cheerful expression whiplash fast. But when he looks up at Ajay, it looks genuine. He looks genuinely pleased to be here with him.

“You know, I believe I used to know an Ajay, but that was a long, long time ago,” the tiger says, conversationally, as they continue up the path.

They don’t get very far, however, before their shared dream starts to unravel.

 

Ajay wakes with a start by his mother’s bedside, his head beside her hip and her thin hand resting in his messy hair.

 

Eight thousand miles away, in his big bed in the King’s Suite of the Royal Palace of Kyrat, Pagan Min jerks himself awake with a gasp, heart thudding, the old, old gunshot wound in his left shoulder throbbing gently.

 

***

 


	2. The Protectors

***

 

Pagan rubs his face and waits for his heartrate to go down, watching the moonlight stream through the windows. He had that damned dream again, the one about that place, that red and gold place that looks like it’s straight from a _thangka_ painting. He’s been having them on and off again for weeks now; for some reason, he’s an animal in them, always an animal, a big cat of some kind. He moves low to the ground on four sure paws.

In that first dream he was told things that are hazy now, but there was something about needing to protect that place. A voice that sounded disconcertingly like Ishwari told him that he was a protector and that those blue…things, the vaguely frightening things with the masks were his enemies, that they were invaders trying to kill what was magical about it. It’s all very, very strange and blurred, but his time there has been filled with pouncing and ripping the demon-looking things to pieces with savage satisfaction.

This time was very different, however. The details are already slipping from his grasp, but there was another demon thing there, this one huge and flying, spouting fire. He remembers thinking, _this, this is my true enemy._ But when he had roared in challenge, it had swept low and _bitten_ him, blood everywhere, one of the cursed thing’s teeth jammed in him and the very forest on fire around him as he ran in terror. He couldn’t face it alone.

Pagan vaguely remembers a feeling that seemed a lot like dying as he wandered in pain, bleeding heavily all the while, then collapsing.

There was someone else there as well. That’s never happened before; he’s always been completely alone. He remembers the ghost of searing pain as a young man pulled that tooth thing out of him. Dark-haired, handsome, not a lot of clothing. Pagan sighs. Of course he was handsome, of course he was scantily-clad. But it wasn’t that sort of dream at all. That voice had whispered to him again, something about that man also being a protector, that he was there to help, that they would help each other, and that’s true. The stranger did help him. But the details are fading so quickly…

Pagan rubs at the scar in his left shoulder, that ache already fading too, and as he gets up and goes about his day he mostly forgets about the dream. He always does.

 

Except, he doesn’t, not this one.

 

He keeps thinking about that man. What was his name…something that started with an A, a common Kyrati name. Something he’s heard a hundred times. He runs his pen over his lower lip as he tries to recall it, surrounded by a mountain of expense reports. Stupefyingly boring stuff. He drags a pile of Noore’s shit towards him. He’d had lunch with her the day before yesterday and she had been civil…pleasant, even, so he’ll do her pile first. Yuma’s still on his shitlist. There’s only so many times a man can be called a weak idiot before it becomes difficult to laugh it off, and she’s running the very edge of his temper…enormous amounts of leeway he gives her, and still she sneers at him. Perhaps she’s taunting him, wants him to give in and lock her up in her own prison, a taste of her own fucking medicine, or give her up to Paul’s tender mercies, or just wants him to take a cane to her backside. See how far she can _push._ He leans back in his chair and rubs at the ache starting above his right eye.

Escape sounds like a pleasant proposition. He pours himself a brandy and parks it by his elbow. He briefly contemplates a couple of the little white packets in the same drawer, but that’s probably a bad idea. The stuff keeps him awake for hours after the fun part wears off, and while he doesn’t sleep much in general he finds himself…wanting to, for a change. Perhaps in his sleeping mind he’ll find his way back to that place.

That fellow’s name will probably come to him when he least expects it, will probably just pop right into his head. He’s the one that made him up, after all.

 

***

 

Ajay stays at the hospital all the time now. The doctors tell him that it won’t be all that long. He tries to talk to his mom about things: what she wants as far as a service, cremation or casket, finances, things like that. It’s so hard though, to talk about this shit with her. A cold acknowledgement of the fact that she is, indeed, dying, and she’s so weak she keeps drifting off, drifting off and away from him.

He’s almost thirty but he feels like a child again, utterly lost.

The next morning she seems to feel a little better, but she doesn’t want to talk about any of that stuff, and waves her too-thin hand like none of it is important. She wants to tell him about Kyrat; what it was like when she was growing up, how beautiful it is, how much she wishes she had gotten to go back.

“I only ask one thing of you, my son…my good and dutiful son. I love you so, so much…I want you to take me home to Lakshmana. Can you do that? Can you take my ashes back to Kyrat, back to the place that I am supposed to be?” Her hand grips his with unexpected strength. Her eyes are too bright, spots of color high on her cheeks, but it doesn’t look healthy. It looks like she’s burning fuel she doesn’t have. Maybe the last of it, as he strokes her hair back and tries not to blubber on her.

“Yeah, Mom,” and he has to swallow past those tears that are stuck in his throat. “Whatever you want, okay? I’ll take you where ever you want to go, just…you need to rest now, okay? You’re wearing yourself out.”

She throws him a narrow-eyed look, a ‘don’t be stupid’ look.

“These are the things that I needed to say, and it was nearly too late…I almost waited too long. He would have been so sad, so very sad…he has been alone all these years, I think…” she trails off exhaustedly.

“Who, Mom? Who are you talking about?”

But it’s too late. She’s asleep again, and it’s the last lucid conversation he has with her.

The little sleep he gets while caring for her he throws himself into wholeheartedly, wanting to be in that red and gold place again. Wishing and hoping to be able to just…escape for a little while, and maybe see the tiger again. Ajay finds himself thinking about him quite a bit. Maybe next time he’s there, his friend will remember his name.

 

The next night, Ajay dreams of that place again, and the tiger is waiting for him. Sitting there just where they parted. 

“You seem a bit down, dear boy. Is something the matter?”

Ajay and the tiger stroll along the stone path that meanders through the crimson grass, blood-red leaves blowing across it.

“My mom is really sick. Like really sick. The kind you don’t get better from,” Ajay mumbles. He doesn’t much feel like talking about it in any great detail.

“I am very sorry to hear that,” the tiger says softly, and suddenly the big head is under his hand, nuzzling against him, weaving his big body around him and against his legs. He’s so big that his shoulders nearly come to Ajay’s waist. Ajay works his fingers down into the downy fur right behind his ears, and the tiger makes a happy chuffing sound that makes Ajay smile a little. The world’s biggest housecat.

“I wish you could remember your name, so that I had something to call you,” Ajay says, stroking the massive head.

He sits down cross-legged in the path and the tiger rests his head on Ajay’s knee, still making that soothing happy sound. He’s magnificent, palest gold on top and snowy white underneath, his stripes inky dark. The lines are so neat and clean they almost look painted on.

Ajay didn’t notice before, but the tooth dagger left a terrible scar in his shoulder and down his side, a long pink weal where the fur doesn’t grow anymore. He brushes his fingertips down it, wondering how he came to be hurt so badly when all of his other injuries healed without a mark. _He’s seen bloodshed, and has known much sorrow in the other world. Perhaps he can be reborn in this one,_ that voice whispers in his head. The one that sounds kind of like Mom.

The tiger’s skin shivers under his hand, so he moves to keeps scratching behind his ears since he seems to like that the best. He has an earring in the left one. Ajay is studiously not thinking of the fact that the tiger is a person sometimes. This nuzzling and cuddling would…it would be really weird. But like this it’s not. It’s nice to touch, and be touched in turn.

The tiger’s forehead wrinkles in thought, which is amusing.

“I wish I could…oh! I remember it Ajay, I do! I think…it’s Bagha. No, wait…that just means tiger. That’s not right. Bagha…Bhagan. Bhagan! No, that’s almost it, very close, but not quite…” The tiger pokes his bristly tongue out again, just a little, with the effort of remembering. “…Pagan. That’s it! My name is _Pagan._ Yes my boy, that’s definitely it.”

The tiger, Pagan now, beams up at Ajay…or as well as someone can beam when they have teeth like that.

Ajay laughs outright this time. It’s hard to be melancholy with this silly tiger around, bright and cheerful and sunny. His name is Pagan. He’ll make sure not to forget it.

“Pagan,” Ajay murmurs, trying it out, still scratching his ears. They flick against his fingers, velvety-feeling. And then Pagan sits up, those ears pricked far forward.

“Ajay, do you hear that?” he says, cocking his head.

Ajay listens hard, but all he can hear is a little breath of air stirring the leaves, and the sound of his own blood moving in his ears. “No, I don’t hear anything. What’s it sound like?”

“It sounds like…it’s like a bell, but it’s not right. There’s something wrong with it,” and there’s tension in his voice now.

“Wrong how?”

“Well, I don’t rightly know. But I think perhaps we ought to go and see about it,” says Pagan, and Ajay agrees. He climbs to his feet and walks with Pagan, beside Pagan, watching his ears flick this way and that like two tiny, spotted satellite dishes. It feels like the most natural thing in the world to rest his hand on his furry shoulders as they go.

Pagan’s hearing is much better than his but it’s not long before he can hear the bell too, the wrongness of it. That sound pulls at the both of them, a deep, instinctual imperative to _fix_ it. Help the bell.

 

Crouched in some crimson bushes at the base of a big tree, Ajay and Pagan survey the area. “Man, these demon guys are everywhere,” Ajay whispers with some dismay. One of them is bigger, much bigger than the others; his mask is like a big metal bull’s head. His neck and shoulders wouldn’t be out of place on a bull either. As they watch, the man bull thing bellows something in the harsh, guttural, inhuman language that these things use and sprays a gout of _fire_ from his mouth. Pagan and Ajay both flinch minutely.

 “What do you say we leave that big fellow for last, hmm? Perhaps we can work our way around the edges here, take down the unsuspecting ones,” Pagan whispers back. “If you point to the one you want, I can sneaky-sneak right over and bite his fucking head off,” and he sounds downright cheerful about the prospect. Of course he is.

“Hold up though,” Ajay whispers, touching his shoulder. “What’s that other noise? Do you hear that? Like…chanting, or something. It’s weird.”

Pagan cocks his head, his little ears rotating. “No…now that I don’t hear.” It seems that this sound is for him alone then. “Do you want to see what it is?”

“Yeah…yeah, I think I do. Maybe it’s important.”

“Lead the way then, my boy. I’ll be right behind you.” Ajay stays in a stealthy crouch and Pagan follows, big head right beside his hip, trying to follow the sound of that weird deep chanting.

It doesn’t take long until they find what’s making that sound. One of the stone shrines with the candles and lamps, tucked away off the beaten path, and in front of it…

“Whoa…” Ajay mutters, looking at the man. Or, what’s left of him, anyway. His body is frozen in place, eyes wide, hair flung wild like he was in furious motion when time itself stopped for him and trapped him here. Prompted by some instinct, Ajay reaches for the medallion that the frozen seeker wears…only to have Pagan clamp his mouth down on his wrist, those enormous teeth digging in just a little and halting the motion of his hand. “What…”

“Kerrful, Ahay…b’kerrful. Don’ tuff eh’body isself.” Pagan’s muffled voice makes Ajay chuckle, and when Pagan spits his arm out it makes him laugh even harder. “Ugh, I do _so_ miss having hands,” Pagan says, clearly this time. “What I mean is, if you touch the body itself, you could become trapped in whatever spell _he_ is.”

Ajay examines his wrist; Pagan was so careful that only the merest indentions of his teeth remain in the skin. “How do you know that, though?” Ajay says, examining the body closely and trying to work out how to get the medallion off without making contact.

“I’ve no idea. How do you know that you need it in the first place? You probably just do. Intuition, or some such thing,” Pagan replies, with a hint of asperity.

“Hmm, you have a point.”

In the end, Ajay decides to go and get a stick and lift it off that way, careful not to touch a single part of the flailing, frozen man. Once he works it off, he holds it in his bare hands and it’s warm, almost vibrating. Pagan circles his feet nervously but doesn’t say anything as Ajay pulls it on over his own head…and it feels…right. Warm, and right, with a healthy gold glow as it rests against his heart. Pagan raises his head high and sniffs at it, which tickles his bare chest.

“Well, what does it smell like?” Ajay says, scratching the tickle away.

“It smells…nice. A bit like sunshine.” He takes the opportunity to clean a paw.

Ajay considers this. How weird. “Sunshine has a smell?”

“Oh yes,” Pagan says, as if it should be obvious. Still cleaning, he glances up…and freezes.

“Ajay, look, look up there! If we can get over that cliff, we can avoid that big bastard back there, I think.”

“That would be fantastic, but look how high it is. I can’t climb up there.” The rock face in question is a nearly sheer expanse of hard stone.

“It’s all right, my boy. I can get us up there! Definitely not a problem!” He looks back at Ajay expectantly, happily, and it takes Ajay a couple of heartbeats to understand what he means. “Climb aboard, don’t be shy,” Pagan says, smiling his cheerful but still slightly disconcerting tiger smile.

He’s offering to let Ajay ride him around like a furry pony. God.

Throwing a leg over Pagan’s broad back and straddling him feels…weirdly and almost uncomfortably intimate, especially when all that muscle and fur ripples and shifts warmly against his inner thighs, against his…Ajay swallows. He’s not, not going to think about that, about how good it feels, about how he wants more of it and what the _hell_ , but it’s so tempting right in this moment to just let go and rub himself against...

Pagan clears his throat with a rumbling cough, and Ajay’s face flames. If he feels anything amiss, Pagan mercifully keeps it to himself. “Ready? Balance good? Hanging on tightly?”

Ajay works his hands under the red and gold ropes across Pagan’s shoulders. “Are you sure? I mean, I have to be heavy and that’s like, fifteen feet easy,” he says, eyeballing the rock ledge way, way over their heads.

“I know I can do it! You hardly weigh anything…you’ll see. I’ll get a bit of a running go, and up _we’ll_ go,” so confident about it that he can’t deny that it’s an attractive solution. He hooks his toes into the chains around Pagan’s middle, just for good measure. Pagan turns and lopes back from the edge of the cliff as Ajay clings like a burr, eyeballing the distance, spreads his paws wide, and lunges with a spray of dirt and leaves as his claws dig into the grass. The speed at which he can move over a short distance is absolutely incredible, as he hits his full stride, the powerful muscles bunching like huge rubber bands as he makes one, two three big bounds and then they’re airborne.

Pagan is every bit as good at leaping as he proclaimed, but he makes one tiny miscalculation. They fly up, up and past the edge of the cliff and they would have had plenty of clearance, but they’re too far out, they’re falling back down and Ajay’s heart is in his throat as Pagan reaches and just barely snags the edge with his big paws. The momentum slams his ribcage into the rock with a thud, forcing a growled ooof sound out of him and the force of the impact nearly robs Ajay of his grip. With a grunt of effort, Pagan gets his elbows up onto the ledge and tries to get a back foot up to help boost them, but his claws scrabble and miss their hold. Ajay unhooks his toes and scrambles up Pagan’s shoulders and up and over his head like a monkey, trying his best to avoid pulling fur or poking anything sensitive. Once his weight is off, Pagan’s able to pull himself up with another grunt and a cough, flopping bonelessly beside Ajay.

Silence.

“Well...that actually worked better than I thought it would,” Pagan says, once he has breath enough for it, and laughs.

Ajay pokes him in the side with his elbow, not all that gently. “You’re such an asshole,” but he’s laughing too. That was…fun. Exhilarating, even if Pagan is crazy.

 

When he stands up, the sight makes that laughter die on his lips. From this vantage, he can see the bell that they’ve been hearing, just visible off in the golden haze. It’s at the top of the biggest statue that Ajay has ever seen; a woman with outstretched hands, holding a flat disk that the immense bell floats above.

It should be floating there, but it’s chained down, it’s calling for help; they have to rescue it, free it, the chains are hurting it…

Ajay finds himself stumbling towards that immense statue without realizing what he’s doing. Pagan butts his head against his legs. “Easy, dear boy, easy. We’ll get there, we’ll go together, all right? I can feel it too, it’s…pulling, pulling on my mind,” and Ajay can hear the strain in his voice, “but we have to go carefully.”

 

The only way they can see to get to the statue is by a set of stone stairs leading to a series of man-made pools; the high rocks act as a funnel, no way to avoid the trap that the demons are ready to spring on them. At least from their lofty vantage point they can spot where they are, even if they seem to be able to phase in and out of existence. Watching them do it, jittering out of sight and then back in somewhere else like they’re maybe not even aware of it happening is so goddamn _creepy_.

“I have a plan,” Pagan whispers. “No way to avoid that big fellow in the middle. We’ll have to fight him for sure, this time. Once he jumps down off that big stone and comes after us, I’ll distract him from the front whilst you stab him!” He grins, all his teeth showing.

“Did you somehow miss the part where he can breathe fire? Y’know, out of his mouth? Which you’ll be facing?”

“Better be stabbing quickly then!”

“Jesus, this is stupid,” Ajay mutters under his breath, but he doesn’t see a lot of other options. At least they’ll be fighting in water.

To be perfectly honest, he feels the same pull as Pagan does; not only to help the bell, but to fuck these guys up. That’s part of it, part of protecting this place. Like when he put that amulet on, the thought of killing these things is very warm and right.

That feeling of rightness grows and he and Pagan move soundlessly across the stones. It’s like instincts that he had no idea he even possessed are waking up; the way he can move through the underbrush and catch a branch with his fingertips that would have raked across his body and rustled. It’s like he can see it before it even happens and ease it back into place slowly, soundlessly. He somehow knows exactly where the weakest spot on that bull guy is, just how he needs to hold his dagger for the thrust and how he needs to brace his arm for the impact that could jolt it out of his hand. All these things are coming to him like old memories, old friends; like this old friend at his side. Like déjà vu. He runs a hand across Pagan’s broad head affectionately, and he looks back at him with that sunny expression, with warm dark eyes.

“Are you ready?” Pagan whispers.

“Yeah, let’s do it.”

Again, Pagan is as good as his word; Ajay only has to point with his dagger and he’s off, a ghostly pale shadow that drags the demon guys down with massive paws and finishes them with a kill bite to the neck that nearly decapitates them before they disappear in a puff of blue smoke. He could easily fit their whole head into his maw, but Ajay figures those metal masks are not very pleasant to bite down on.

They get four in this way before they’re spotted.

“Go, Ajay, go!” Pagan roars, as the bull guy shrieks and drops down, letting out gouts of fire. One of the regular demons rushes his right side but he’s ready, he knows just what to do as his legs gather under him like springs and he’s driving his knife up under the thing’s chin. His other hand seizes the demon’s knife from nerveless fingers and he turns, everything moving like it’s in slow motion and flings it, hard and true, right into the chest of another just as Pagan engages with the bull. He dodges one volley of flame with a snarl, leaping low and sideways, tail thrashing, before he sees his opening and latches onto its arm.

Ajay is right there.

He lunges and grabs a handhold on the brass mask, uncomfortably hot against his fingers but he still jerks the thing’s head back and plunges the tooth dagger as hard as he can into the base of the thick and wrinkled neck. A knife rakes along his ribs with a bright, sharp pain that makes him grunt, but he’s not letting go, oh no…if he lets go that thing will torch Pagan in a second. A second demon flings something sharp that slams into his bicep but he ignores that too. Finally, with a last hideous screech that makes his ears ring, the fire bull thing dissolves into the same blue smoke as his brethren. Before the smoke even dissipates completely Pagan is leaping through it, onto the demon that raked the knife along Ajay’s ribs.

The demon that threw the spike at Ajay screeches and does that disappearing and reappearing trick but he’s is ready for it when it pops back into sight, knife raised. Ajay just drops to his knees in the blood-red water and shoves his own dagger into the thing’s belly as hard as he can, and with that the fight seems to be over.

As the remains of the last demon blows away in the mild breeze Ajay lets himself topple backwards onto his ass, heedless of the water, chest heaving for air. Now he feels the throwing knife still stuck in his arm, the ragged slice across his ribs that’s bleeding down his side and mingling with the red.

“Ajay?” Pagan says, splashing up to him. “Oh, poor boy…” as his sandpapery tongue touches the wound on his side. It hurts, but his tongue is somehow soothing at the same time as he yanks the spike out of his arm and flings it.

“It’s all right, I think I’m okay. It’s not deep, is it?” A bad wound would probably hurt less.

“No, it’s not. Just messy.” Pagan nuzzles at him, and Ajay scratches under his chin.

 

Their way is finally open.

 

Pagan stands still as a rock and lets Ajay lean on him to get to his feet. He would be perfectly content to sit down with Pagan for awhile, maybe under one of these shady trees, but the pull of the bell won’t let him rest.

Up this short flight of stone steps, and they can start up the crazily circling ramp to the bell.

Ajay puts one bare foot on its smooth metal surface.

A loud pop behind him, a roaring screech, and then the deeper, rumbling roar of Pagan’s battle cry. He turns, just in time to see the broad back of one of those bull things and the gout of flame that lights Pagan on fire. He lets out a hissing, pained squall that sends Ajay leaping at the thing’s back with his own roar, heedless of the danger. He clings with his knees and thighs and raises his dagger above his head with both hands and slams it home as hard as he can. The bull lets out a squalling, pained shriek of its own which he feels nothing but satisfaction in hearing, and collapses under him, spilling him next to Pagan. He’s still on fire and gasping for air, eyes wide.

He doesn’t give himself time to think, or consider what to do. He whips off his still-sodden skirt, loincloth…thing and beats the flames out as Pagan coughs pitifully, his bits dangling in the breeze.

“Dear lord, that was unpleasant,” Pagan says when he can, getting painfully to his feet. “Oh… _oh,_ ” when he sees Ajay, wearing nothing but some paint and the amulet around his neck.

“Well, it fucking worked, didn’t it,” he says defensively, holding up the now sooty and drenched ball of fabric in front of himself.

Pagan, for his part, simply lies down and covers his eyes with his paws. “Thank you,” he says contritely, which comes out muffled and ridiculous, as Ajay tries to figure out how the damn thing was wrapped around him. He laughs, he can’t help it, and Pagan chuckles a little too, his paws still firmly in place.

Ajay finally manages to get his rudimentary clothing knotted around himself. As he does so, he notices that the gash in his side has knitted itself into a dark pink line already, well on its way to healed up. He checks his arm and it’s the same. The burns on Pagan’s striped hide are already pink new skin as well. He tugs Pagan’s big paws away from his face and scratches at his ears. “You ready to go up?”

Pagan gets up and stretches luxuriantly. That feeling of burning haste has receded somewhat now that they’ve killed all of these guys, but they’re too close to stop now.

“You just keep going, I’m right beside you,” Pagan says, and parks his shoulders under Ajay’s hand.

 

That smooth metal ramp is a little disconcerting, the way that there’s no rails or anything and it just keeps going up, and up, and up, but the center has designs in it that provide some traction for his bare toes. Even moving carefully, it doesn’t take long for them to reach the big platform with the bell.

It…it’s pitiful, chained there. It keeps jerking like a living thing trying to escape captivity, like a magnificent animal on a too-short chain.

But he knows what to do.

Ajay runs for the big ring set into the middle of the platform, Pagan right beside him. He slides to a stop and drops to his knees, raises that big tooth blade high above his head, and brings it down.

The sound that the bell makes when it floats free of its chains is one of the most beautiful he’s ever heard. Pagan roars happily at it in answer, and Ajay’s heart swells. _Free._

Gold mist blows across his vision, the wind of that world suddenly whipping hard against his face, tugging at his hair. Red leaves tumble by in that warm wind, but he can’t see Pagan, and his belly lurches. He puts his hand down at waist level where his shoulders were, but he’s gone. “Pagan,” he calls out, but everything is obscured now. If he wasn’t standing on a flat surface, he wouldn’t know if he were floating or what. “Pagan!!” Ajay calls again, his voice sounding flat to his own ears.

“Ajay!” Pagan yells for him in turn, but he sounds so far away and he doesn’t know which way to go in the thick mist. His voice seems to come from everywhere, and nowhere. He reaches out with his hands and, just for a moment, his fingers brush against soft fur. “Pagan!” He lunges for him, but he’s stumbling as he goes off the edge of the platform, his heart up in his throat as he falls through the gold mist, falling…

…falls right out of the chair he was asleep in and into the floor of his mother’s hospital room, tangled in a blanket and with his palms and knees stinging from the hard tile.

 

***


	3. The Mad King

***

 

Pagan wakes, and immediately wishes he hadn’t.

That dream was _wonderful_ , like living out an action movie, like going on adventures with a friend. The memory of that young man touching him warmly. His own tongue carefully soothing his side where he was injured. The end was a little sad though; losing track of him in that gold mist, each of them calling for the other in a near-panic of loss.

He snuggles down further into the blankets and tries to commit all the details to memory but they quickly fade, already slipping through his fingers like sand…but that’s all right. The feelings remain: warmth and companionship and of making something right and whole again. Something that feels a little like joy. These things he remembers, remembers and holds them close, savoring them.

Complete figments of his imagination, of course…but he’ll take what he can get.

Armor against another day in this dark, ruinous hellhole. This gorgeous, wild land. An asylum full of the mad. He doesn’t even know what these people _want._ Not the slightest clue. Well, he knows what they want, but none of it makes any sense. They want cheap rotgut liquor and cigarettes and bloodshed. They want their boys to have good educations, but not their girls, and they want whores and as much heroin they can get their hands on.

In hindsight, a glaring blind spot in his and Yuma’s plans were, of course, that a youth spent being groomed to take over a Triad drug operation was not good training in how to be the leader of an entire country. Those rules of blood for blood, revenge at all costs, strike hard at those who betray you…Ishwari had helped him, a leader in her own right. Ishwari had shown him what to do, how to do better. How to _be_ better.

The power that he seized, that part was simplicity itself, to yank the throne away from Mohan and his fundamentalist aspirations. To keep that power, well…that was a great deal harder, but for nearly thirty years he’s managed to stay on top of the heap…exhausted and disgusted and morally bankrupt, but on top nonetheless. To use that power in any real, meaningful way, to actually rule, to effect change…impossible. Not by himself.

Not without her. He was a man made to be a weapon in her hand, to lay a kingdom at her feet. He wasn’t made for complex political maneuvering, it only confuses him; people’s motivations confuse him. No, he was made to say ‘Of course, my love; just tell me who you need me to kill.’

God, he misses her. Aches with it still, every single day.

He remembers with a groan that he’s supposed to meet Paul at Rajgad today, something about a big raid and a few transport trucks’ worth of assorted Golden Path and sympathizers that they have to decide what to do with. Ordinarily he’d leave them to Paul’s tender mercies, but there are just so _many_ of them, enough to strain their resources if they simply jail them all. And executing all of them isn’t an option, not unless they want their little terrorist cold war to go red hot overnight.

 

The ride to Rajgad Gulag is short and just about as deep in friendly territory as it’s possible to be, so he chooses to take the open-top Jeep. The icy wind and occasional swirl of flurries doesn’t trouble him, just glad to be outside in the sun and clean wind as he turns his coat collar up and pulls on his gloves.

The towering mountainside that makes two-thirds of Rajgad impenetrable also cuts off the morning sun, making the space within the walls darker and colder than it would otherwise be. Rajgad has a primitive sort of conference or war room that can be reconfigured and pressed into service as just about anything, and as it’s also the largest enclosed space in the fortress and out of the bitter wind at least, the prisoners are herded into it to await his judgement.

He strides into the room…and slows, stops, dumbfounded. Lined up right in front are children, most of them in Golden Path colors. They stare at him with cold, unforgiving eyes. Paul must have caught the look on his face, because he leans close to his ear. “The young ones were all apprehended as enemy combatants, Boss.”

God, these two in front of him can’t be more than twelve, thirteen at the outside, as he peers into their faces. Malnutrition often stunts their growth so they often look younger than they really are, but even so…kids toting guns. Child soldiers. And he’s supposedly the monster.

At least he has lines that he won’t cross.

Looking at their faces reminds him unpleasantly of being thirteen again himself, of dirty, sweating streets, the knife in his hand and his back to the wall and how strangely dark the blood had looked under all those neon lights.

He breathes in, lets it out. “Shining Minds for this lot, I should think.” Give the young ones a chance at least. But he has little faith that the experience will make happy, grateful citizens out of them. It seldom does.

He’s suddenly exhausted, so tired of looking at Kyrati faces, making judgements about Kyrati lives, and he just fucking got here. Shove them all off a cliff and have done with it…but he just _had_ to go and tell De Pleur he wanted to be more involved, didn’t he? He may be judge and jury, but he’ll make Paul play the executioner.

“For the rest, if their crimes were stealing food or something of that ilk, a short term here at Rajgad.” People did usually survive their sentences, if they were strong, if they could bear the cold and the work. They had a good chance of it, anyway. “If it were arms, military supplies…firing squad. If they’ve killed my men, or civilians, send them up to Yuma. Now get them out of my sight.” The soldiers troop out, pushing their charges ahead of them.

Paul is turning to go as well, somehow too distracted or perhaps just too stupid to sense his displeasure. In any case, Pagan lets him get all the way to the door before he speaks.

“You and I need to talk.” Low and soft. Paul’s shoulders hunch up just a bit before he turns back to him. Honest fear. Good. It’s something, at least. “How _many_ times have we discussed your little parties, Paul? Hmm? At least three that I can recall.” He throws up his arms. “There may have been more that I was drunk for and thus _don’t_ recall, but still!” He reaches out and snags De Pleur by the edge of his vest and reels him in. “Don’t you remember how I explained that times…well, they’re a bit rough right now. Perhaps I didn’t use small enough words. You see, we need the support of the people. We need them to hate the Golden Path, not us. And we don’t do that by kidnapping them at random and torturing them for no other motive than sadistic _fun,_ now do we?”

Pagan plunges a hand into his coat and, before Paul can even start to shy away, jams the barrel of his Baretta into De Pleur’s ear canal. “The carrot, Paul! The goddamn _carrot._ ” He grinds the big gun into the side of his head in a sudden surge of frustration and thumbs back the hammer. The clicking snap of it is loud in the quiet room, as he observes Paul’s Adam’s apple bob up and down along the column of his scruffy throat.

Something about that click of the cocked hammer, the gun ready to fire always instills a sense of peace in him, if he waits long enough for the frustration to bleed away. The peace of power. The peace of being able to remove a sticky knot from the equation. A Zen sort of simplicity. So he stands there and closes his eyes and waits for it, his finger tight on the trigger and Paul’s shoulder quivering under his hand. Lets out a gentle sigh.

His finger is exerting perhaps four pounds of pressure out of five on said trigger.

But De Pleur’s a good employee, he really is…hardworking, capable, excellent at his job. He just needs this lesson about carrots beaten into his thick _fucking_ head.

The irony of this situation is not lost on him, and he chuckles.

“So! What do we say, De Pleur?”

Paul swallows heavily again. “Sorry, Boss. Your Majesty.”

“And?”

“Won’t happen again.”

“Good, good! I’m so glad we could clear this little matter up.” He decocks the pistol and slides it back into the holster and gives Paul an ungentle shove towards the door. “I do believe that’s enough fun for one day. _Out._ ”

“Yessir, of course.”

A little later, when he’s climbing into his Jeep to head back up the hill, he watches the prisoners destined for the firing squad being lined up against the bloodstained, bullet-pocked wall of the fortress. As the sun rises high enough to shine over the mountain and into the prisoner’s faces, he thinks that at least they get to see it one more time. Have it warm their faces as they squint into the light. Perhaps it’s bright enough that they won’t see the guns leveled at them. It will be mercifully quick; he isn’t cruel for the sake of cruelty. The execution squad is made up of some of his best marksmen, with strict instructions to put those bullets in vital areas. He suspects that when his own end comes that it won’t be nearly as easy.

The other two groups of prisoners are already loaded into the transport trucks, ready to leave after him. Before the chatter of rifles can drown him out, he yells up to the drivers, “And for fuck’s sake, _don’t get your loads mixed up this time!”_

 

Safely ensconced back at the Palace, he pours himself a scotch and carries it into the sitting room. He settles himself comfortably on the couch and crosses his legs.

“I'll tell you something that not many people know," he says.  "Anytime, if any of the Golden Path leaders asked for an audience with me, I would give it to them. Sit and listen to what they had to say.” He sips at his drink. “But they won’t. If any of them came to me and said, ‘King Min, may we have the gold back? We want it to build schools and hospitals and roads and make sure everyone has enough to eat,’ why, I’d be fucking ecstatic! Seriously! I’m not exaggerating! I’d go tear that goddamn statue down in a minute, no, a _heartbeat._ I’d do it myself…ha, imagine it! Me out there with a pickaxe…or an RPG, perhaps.” He sets his glass down hard with a clatter on the table. “But they _won’t._ Bloody fucking cowards, the lot of them. So there it sits, mocking them with my face. Until they find the balls to take it.” He shrugs. “Or merely come and ask.”

He makes a sardonic little gesture at the portrait with a raised finger. The painting is of the last King, a slovenly-looking fellow despite the gold-crusted brocade he’s draped in for the picture. Soft, and sloppy. Born to this life; probably never been shot, or stabbed, or gone hungry, or fought to survive in any meaningful way. All of which happened to him before he turned twenty, fancy boarding school or no. This guy probably sat and merely pissed his drawers when the Nationalists came for him! Though he tries, Pagan can’t even manage to recall the fellow’s name, even though they chat often. There’s some meaning in that somewhere, some bitter irony.

What would he himself do, if the Golden Path managed to get their collective heads out of their collective asses and come up the hill after him? Would he pull a Tony Montana and fight like a cornered tiger, go down with guns blazing and coked out of his mind? There’s a certain zesty appeal to that plan, but it also feels…trite. Done before. _Expected._

Perhaps he’ll just invite them all in for dinner. Oh, and wouldn’t that be a laugh! The dining room crowded with rebels and him serving up the food. And when they gun him down, they’ll have to explain how they shot an unarmed man attempting to serve them Chinese-American takeout. He throws back his head and roars laughter at the thought. Their faces when they see the table set, that massive and gaudy portrait of himse…well, Eric, anyway, that he had installed down there.

Oh, that’s definitely how he’ll do it, as he tosses a wink at Old King Whatsisface. He’s an excellent conversational partner, a brilliant listener. Much better than that other guy downstairs.

Even he isn’t mad enough to sit and talk with his own portrait.

Another thought occurs to him then, more depressing. What would they do with Lakshmana’s shrine? Tear it down, probably. Burn it. Perhaps one of them would have the grace to throw his body on the pyre, so he could be with her. His little girl. That would be a fitting end for him, but thinking about her always makes his chest hurt with that old, old pain. Like that scar in his shoulder that had never healed right.

Her shrine, the nursery upstairs, their old bedroom; so many locked and dusty rooms, so many locked and dusty rooms in his heart…and he has to _stop,_ has to shove those thoughts down with the ruthless speed of long practice before they swallow him up. Breathe. Take a drink. You’re fine. Fine, just fine.

Late in the night, a knock at the door startles him awake from where he fell asleep on the couch. The gun is in his hand, safety off but it’s only Gary, already letting himself in. He breathes out and sets it down on the coffee table.

“Sir, I’m sorry to disturb you, but you wanted to be notified immediately of any change in codename R23’s status…”

And in his hand is a printout of Ishwari’s obituary.

 

Pagan escapes to that other world. Or tries to, naked and drunk in bed, twisting around inside the bedclothes. Twisting around inside his own skin, unable to escape the wavery sort of pain that he can’t even put his finger on; here and vibrating in his chest and belly, then ghosting away, only to slam into him again. If he could only sleep, or knock himself unconscious, he could escape it. It keeps shocking him anew every time it comes. _She’s gone. I became someone else, while I waited for her. Someone she would have despised._

_She was never coming back._

He manages to drink himself to black unconsciousness, which is somewhat of a relief but the dreams don’t come. _Won’t_ come when he’s fucked up like this, he’s beginning to suspect, after he wakes still a little fuzzed and dizzy. Or perhaps it’s merely the fact that he wants it and thus it is withheld from him, as with everything else he’s ever had any real interest in holding onto in his life. It doesn’t matter how deeply he desires to _not be here._ Doesn’t matter how much he desperately wants to wake up in that other place where it’s clear and unambiguous who his enemies are, lined up in front of him for the taking.

Where he has a friend, someone on his side for once. A warm hand on his shoulders, a solidity at his back.

 

Pagan goes about his day with bloodshot eyes and a pounding head, no closer to where he wants to be. He pushes stacks of papers about on his desk, considers applying a match to the lot of it, considers rolling a live grenade into one of the drawers just to watch it go up like confetti.

Instead, he shoves the stacks out of his way and puts his head down on the cool wood and closes his eyes, suddenly and inexplicably on the verge of tears. His whole body seems to be trembling, the epicenter of it somewhere in his lower chest. He lets out a shuddering sigh.

But as he lies there in the quiet dark behind his closed eyes, his breathing begins to grow easier and easier, evening out softly. Sleep touches him with a gossamer wing, the merest brush of effervescent warmth as his thoughts gently scatter.

While his outer eyes remain closed, the inner ones open.

They open on a vista of gold sky, of blood-red water. He sobs in sheerest relief, a snarly sort of hitching growl that is a tiger’s version of a sob as the warm wind caresses him, and he lifts his muzzle to it. That breeze cards through his fur and ruffles his ears and whiskers with a subtle hint of jasmine, jasmine mixed with a spicy smell…his nostrils quiver. He knows that scent. He had never asked her what that spice was in her perfume, had wanted to maintain the mystery…

The breeze gusts for a moment, settles. _I’m so sorry, my love, for everything. I wish you could remember that when you wake. I always loved you. From across the world, I loved you._ Pagan bows his head, his little ears flat and quivering. _But he needs you now. Your friend, your protector. He’ll be here soon._ “I’ll wait right here for him, my dear,” he whispers to the wind, to her, and settles with his head on his front paws.

 

***


	4. Adrift

***

 

It’s amazing how someone’s entire life can fit inside one small box.

The box in question rests on the freshly-cleaned hardwood floor of Ishwari’s little apartment. Ajay leans on the mop in his hand and gazes around him at the bare, sterile living room, so different than when they lived here together. For much of his life, they lived here together.

The box contains a few pictures of unknown people. Unknowable now; she didn’t write down who they are, or were. A wide angle photo of what looks to be a large family, a smaller group shot of some young people holding weapons with proud looks on their faces. Rifles and big, wickedly curved knives. He has no idea what that’s about. Another of a man that looks vaguely East Asian, with his dark hair in an undercut. The last one is a guy in traditional clothes with the most eighties-looking mullet he’s ever seen. Undercut Guy has an arm slung around the shorter man’s shoulders companionably. A couple of religious books, some letters he can’t read, her favorite scarf and her jewelry…and that’s it. Nothing to really go on, to find Lakshmana. Not that that’s going to stop him. She asked so little of him over the years, and gave so much…and he never realized that, growing up.

And now he’s an orphan. He scrubs angrily at his suddenly wet face. He never expected to feel this way, so adrift.

She kept her secrets locked up so tightly inside of her. That last time they talked was the most she’s ever said about Kyrat, and that mention of a lonely man the only time she’s mentioned anything about the people she might have left behind.

It will take him a few weeks, maybe a month to do everything that needs done: the money stuff and getting the death certificate, having the cremation done like she wanted. Getting his passport. Then he’ll use whatever money is left on a ticket to fly into Patna and try to figure out how in the hell to get into Kyrat. When he called the Consulate’s office they informed him that the borders are generally kept closed, impassable for foreigners.

Does he count? He has no idea. He suspects, like a great many other things in his life, that the answer is complicated.

Ajay shakes his head and walks into the also bare kitchen to put the mop away. The apartment is mostly done; boxes of dishes and clothes stacked neatly by the door to take to donation, the fridge and cabinets cleaned out, everything scrubbed down. The only thing left is the bed, the big bed that he also slept in as a boy until Social Services made her buy another one for him. He’d missed that bed, them warm and cozy together.

He’s so tired.

Too tired to go back to his own place, exhausted to his bones in a way that has nothing to do with the packing and cleaning. He’ll stay one last night here, as he brushes his teeth and washes his face in the tiny bathroom and then climbs into her bed. The cotton quilt has been worn to silky softness over the years, comfortable as an old pair of pajamas, and as he pulls it over him he realizes that he can still smell her. The good scent of her shampoo when he turns his face into the pillow, the smell of her perfume. Surrounded by that jasmine and spice scent, as familiar as childhood, he can almost imagine that he feels her warmth beside him. Can feel her hand on his hair. It helps to soothe some of that raw soreness inside him, the aching hole shaped like her.

Ajay curls up in the quilt, surrounded by her essence, and dreams.

 

This time, he opens his eyes on a seemingly endless and misty blood red lake. Ajay sucks in a deep breath of air and lets it gust out of him in sheerest relief. The raw ache is still there, but it seems as if he’s always able to dream about this place when he really, really needs it the most. When he needs to channel his sorrow into movement, into _doing something_ before he explodes.

When he needs a friend.

He’s crouched on the crossbeam of a bright green rowboat that’s cutting through the water of its own accord, and when he looks up he freezes in place, dumbfounded. The garnet-colored waterfall in front of him is enormous, touched by that gold light and almost as wide as a city block is long. The steady rumbling roar of it seems to shake the air. That’s not the weird part though. The bizarre part is that the crimson water is falling _up._

The bow of the boat comes to a grinding halt on the rocky shale of a little island, and Ajay climbs out.

A huge golden doorway gleams on the other side of the broad river that’s feeding the falls, so he heads that way. At first it seems as if he’ll have to swim it, but then the big flat rocks nearby move into place of their own accord, so he can walk on them. They’re not entirely steady either; they shift gently under his weight but stay buoyed in midair, right above the surface of the water. Freaky. He gingerly picks a path across them, slippery with moss and spray from the falls. He’s halfway across when he notices that they’re returning to their original positions after he’s passed…also freaky.

Intent on his footing and with the sun in his eyes, he doesn’t spot the pale shadow waiting for him in the doorway until he’s nearly on him.

 _Pagan._ Once he hits solid ground he races up the stone steps, still slippery but at least they stay still. He runs and slides to a breathless stop as Pagan rushes to meet him, making that happy chuffing sound. Ajay drops to his knees and laughs in delight as he throws his arms around the tiger’s neck, laughs as Pagan bowls him over playfully. He feels like warm steel under soft fur as Ajay squeezes him, Pagan’s monstrous paws like dinner plates on either side of his head. He’s half squashed under him, but he’s never felt safer.

Pagan chuckles, but there’s a hint of sadness there too, a rumble against Ajay’s ribs. “My dearest boy,” he whispers, as he rubs his whiskery face against his. “My boy.”

Ajay squeezes his eyes shut. All of a sudden that pain his him again, overwhelming, like…like Pagan being here means he can put it down, or at least share the terrible burden of it. His relieved laughter turns into something choked before he realizes it was going to.

He’s really not dealing very well with this.

“Ajay?” and the concern in Pagan’s voice makes the hot tears well up, he can’t help it.

“Whatever is the matter?” Pagan’s paws tighten around him. As they lay there, he seems to understand without Ajay having to tell him. “Here, come inside with me.”

Once they’re through the huge doorway it’s much quieter. Drops of bloodlike water keep leaving the floor and dripping upwards, but even though that’s disconcerting it’s still better in the cave. Feels safer, somehow. Here with Pagan beside him.

Ajay slumps onto the floor beside a row of butter lamps and drops his head in his hands.

Warm breath against the backs of his fingers…he didn’t even hear him come close, his downy paws are that quiet. He keeps his eyes closed but lets his hands drop, and he feels the tiniest warm scratch of his bristly tongue on his face, delicately cleaning his tears. Ajay sighs. It feels too comforting to push him away.

“You may as well get them out now,” Pagan murmurs, near his ear. He shivers. “To hold them in, to hold pain in…it’ll just poison you, drive you mad. I know, better than anyone.” His voice is full of sorrow, and there’s bitterness there too but he nuzzles gently at Ajay with his soft pink nose. “Go on, darling, go ahead and cry…it’s all right, it’s only me here,” and that endearment has him reaching for Pagan, burying his face in his soft ruff, shoulders hitching, as one of Pagan’s big paws encircles his back and holds him close.

When he can speak again, he leans back and rubs under Pagan’s chin the way that he likes, but something about his eyes, that tone in his voice…

“Pagan…what’s wrong? There’s something wrong, isn’t there?”

“I’ve lost someone too…someone who was…who used to be very close to me,” Pagan says hoarsely.

“I’m so sorry,” Ajay whispers, voice thick. He strokes the big head, scratches behind his ears, trying to comfort him too. Pagan makes a strange huffing sound…can tigers cry? he wonders, and all the air seems to shudder out of his massive frame at once. _He’s as desperately sad as I am. What a fucking pair we make. Some protectors._

Nothing but warm and easy quiet between them as they hold each other in the dimly lit cave. He’s getting Pagan’s fur wet, but he doesn’t seem to mind, still nuzzling at him from time to time with little snuffles and nudges of his nose. He rubs behind Pagan’s ears in turn, slow steady strokes of his hand. Sitting there with his face pressed into Pagan’s neck seems to unlock something tight in his chest, and much like his tears, he finds the words spilling out of him before he can stop them.

“She died in the night, just didn’t wake up again…she got sick and died and I couldn’t stop it, couldn’t do a fucking thing. Hell, I probably made it _worse._ I was an awful, shitty kid, I was, I kept doing stupid shit, getting in fucking trouble…” as Pagan rubs his big head against his. “And now I don’t have anybody, she was the last person alive that gave a shit about me and now she’s gone and maybe I deserve it… _fuck,_ ” as everything goes blurry and watery again.

“Nonsense, of course you don’t _deserve_ it,” Pagan says brusquely. There’s something about his mild tone of indignation that makes him feel marginally better. “And,” as he licks at Ajay’s ear, “You have me.”

“Cut that shit out, it tickles. And it’s _wet,_ ” Ajay complains. It’s easier to complain than to lean into him, to respond to that declaration. _You have me._ It seems too good to be true.

Pagan laughs, a low chuckle. “You’re one to talk, you know, complaining of a little damp,” as he rubs his wet fur against Ajay’s arm. His gentle teasing finally makes him chuckle too.

With a last rub at Pagan’s head, Ajay gets to his feet. It’s easy this time; he feels so much lighter. Almost buoyant. “Let’s go see what’s in the rest of this cave,” he says, and Pagan weaves himself around his legs in agreement.

Golden sunlight falls in angled shafts from the ceiling and illuminates the scene in front of them: another frozen seeker, and this time it’s much more obvious how this man came to die. The arrow buried in his throat is surrounded by arterial spray in a wide radius, like a blooming flower. The light makes the droplets glow like rubies. It would be almost beautiful, if it weren’t for his face.

The amount of wide-eyed shock and pain on his frozen visage is considerable.

The bow he was carrying, though…the bow is gorgeous. When Ajay’s hands touch it he feels a sense of overwhelming _rightness;_ it feels like he was born to wield this thing. Just like before, with the amulet, the whispering, chanting voices cease as soon as he plucks it from the air.

He slings the matching quiver over his shoulder and turns to Pagan, who is licking a massive paw and delicately cleaning his face with it. “Well?” Ajay says, and he can feel himself slowly filling with that righteous anger that this place seems to provoke in him. He welcomes it, that hot tide a pleasant distraction. Way more productive than curling up and blubbering into Pagan’s fur. “You wanna go kill some fucking shitbags?”

“Oh yes,” he says, with that knife-edged grin. "Oh, _yes_.”

Even this far back into the cave the water drips the wrong way; when Ajay follows one of the droplets with his sharp eyes he can see it join with the mass of blood-colored water that’s adhering itself to the ceiling somehow. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is their enemies, wandering around without a clue of what’s about to happen to them.

“These fuckers don’t stand a chance now,” he whispers gleefully to Pagan, as they crouch in the shadows of a twisted and gnarled root system. They’re faced with an entire cave full of these demons…and he couldn’t be happier. Every minute he spends stalking and killing these things is a minute that he’s not _thinking_.

They use the deep shadows and the dazzling rays of sunlight coming through the ceiling to their advantage, Pagan acting as a distraction and then fading into the velvety darkness like smoke. When the demons stop in confusion and shade their eyes, Ajay takes careful aim.

Soon the air is full of shrieks and blue dust.

 

On the other side of the cave, sparkling, glittering golden light fills the air, and finally the water falls the right way. Ajay laughs as the coolness of it flows across his bare toes. Now the sound of it is merely a pretty gurgling rather than the deep-throated roar of the big falls. His heart feels inexplicably lighter as he throws himself down onto a fallen log for a well-deserved rest in the warm sunshine as Pagan gets a drink from the stream, delicately lapping at the running water. He leans back comfortably and gazes out on a beautiful vista of floating islands. He’s seen these before, during his other journeys, but...

Ajay pushes himself to his feet again without realizing he’s done it. This is the first time he’s seen _doorways_. Golden doorways full of orange fire. Or mist. He can’t quite tell. In the distance, a giant mass of shimmering air defies his attempts to see past it.

Pagan pushes up under his hand and he combs his fingers through the thick fur between his shoulders absently.

“Ajay,” he says, looking up at him, “is that what I think it is?”

“Yeah, I think it might be. A portal. Or something.”

Pagan stares at it for a long time, ears pricked far forward. Finally, he sits and tucks his tail around his feet. “Before we go see what that’s all about, let’s have a bit of a rest first, hmm? There’s plenty of time for getting into yet more trouble.”

“Yeah, sure. Big lazy cat,” he says, laughing, as Pagan swats at him playfully with claws well pulled, a gleam of mischief in his dark eyes. He teases, but all this running around and killing shit is hard work. With some of that crushing weight off his heart, he’s more than ready for a rest.

Ajay flops gratefully into the grass with a sigh, letting the gurgle of the stream fill his ears, the stunning vista fill his eyes. The breeze sighs comfortingly over his bare shoulders, gently ruffling his hair. He picks up a red leaf from a little pile of them caught by the log he’s leaning against and holds it up, letting the breeze take it gently from his fingers. Pagan sits up straighter and watches with interest. He lets another leaf go and Pagan suddenly drops his head onto his paws, furry rump in the air, tail lashing. He explodes into movement, leaping after the leaf and batting at it.

“You gotta be fucking kidding me,” Ajay sputters in equal parts amusement and disbelief. He lets another leaf go just to watch Pagan bound after it with a happy little snarl.

“What?” He turns around with the leaf hanging from his mouth. “I have _instincts,_ silly boy,” he says with dignity. The majestic pose he adopts is only slightly marred by him spitting the leaf onto the grass as Ajay snorts with laughter. He was going to let another leaf go for him but Pagan’s already distracted by a nearby group of chattering monkeys, deciding to chase them instead. He’s soon out of sight but Ajay can easily hear both angry squawking and happy chuffing, so all is well.

Soaking up the warm sun is making him a little sleepy and the sounds of monkey harassment have ceased for several minutes, so he decides to get up and go in search of Pagan. To be honest, he feels just a little too far away. He decides to walk up the other fork in the stream, and where it burbles out of the rock he finds a little grove of trees, a stretch of soft crimson grass, and Pagan, curled up and already half asleep.

Ajay sighs happily to see him and tiptoes over…but even though he’s nearly silent, Pagan stirs anyway. “My apologies,” he says, deep and sleep-roughened. “It was just such a lovely and inviting spot to lie down in.” He yawns, a slightly disconcerting thing of long ivory daggers.

Ajay grins at him. “Cut that out…” as he’s interrupted by his own yawn. “See? You’ve got me doing it too.”

“Let’s have a bit of a nap then,” Pagan says drowsily. “Here, you can lean against me.”

Pagan lies down again and stretches himself out full-length, and he gratefully rests his shoulders against his warm and furry side. He’s so big that his breathing is making Ajay go up and down himself, rising and falling with his ribcage, but it’s nice. Like being rocked, or something. Pagan has his big head on his paws, already starting to make a little sleepy rumbling noise that may or may not be tiger snores. Or purrs.

Do tigers purr? Ajay thinks, and it’s the last slow, sleepy thought he has before drifting off, chin on chest.

Eight thousand miles away from each other, they both wake simultaneously in their respective beds, the kind of half-waking you do when you shift around to get comfortable again. It’s late morning in Los Angeles as Ajay sleepily retrieves his mother’s quilt that he kicked off and curls back up in it, hiding from the hot bright light pouring into the room from the window. Early in the night in Kyrat, Pagan drowsily shoves himself out of his desk chair and wanders into the bedroom, dragging clothes off as he goes. He climbs in and clutches his pillow and burrows his face into the cool fabric. He also burrows into the covers in the chill room as he blearily listens to the icy wind off the mountain whipping around his corner of the building, letting that old familiar sound lull him back to sleep.

Neither of them even remembers waking at all. Together, they drift off again, drift back to Shangri-La as easily as the leaves drift in the warm wind of that other world.

 

To dream of falling asleep inside a dream is a disorienting experience at the best of times.

Adding to his disorientation is the fact that he wakes with no idea where he is. Why he’s outside with the breeze softly caressing him and why his head is currently pillowed on some strange man’s bare side, and why that man has a hand gently threaded through his hair.

Ajay lets out a completely undignified “Gahh!” sound and scrambles away. The man, who was sleeping soundly, jerks in startlement and makes a similar sound as he scrambles on hands and knees in the opposite direction.

Their eyes meet.

The man across from Ajay is older than he is, well-muscled and strong looking. He has an interesting shock of blond hair, but only on top. The rest of his hair is as dark as his own, and so are his eyes.

Besides some gold ornaments and a necklace of golden coins he’s also not wearing a stitch of clothing, something they both seem to realize at the same time, judging by their blushing faces. Not that Ajay’s loincloth skirt thing leaves much to the imagination.

When Ajay looks again at his hair, he realizes he’s wearing a kind of red and gold crown. Just like the tiger.

Those eyes…that hair. His hair is the exact color of the tiger’s fur.

“Pagan?”

The man’s eyes widen even further, and with a terrific explosion of white smoke he’s a tiger again, that quickly. Like contact with Ajay’s bare skin against him had turned him into a man, like Ajay’s voice saying his name had turned him back. But that doesn’t make any sense, he’s touched him plenty of times now.

Ajay shakes his head to clear the last of his sleepy disorientation. “Whoa, that…”

“…that was very, very odd,” Pagan breathes, finishing Ajay’s sentence, eyes still wide in his now furry face.

 

***


	5. Iron and Flame

***

 

The two protectors of Shangri-La stand looking at each other beside a gurgling stream in a little meadow of soft red grass, just looking while they process this new development.

“Can you…” Ajay swallows. “Do you think you can do that again? Change to your…your human form, I guess is what you’d call it.” He brushes his hand across Pagan’s broad head reassuringly.

Pagan gazes up at him, brown eyes steady and serious, and there’s some expression in them that Ajay can’t name. “Dearest boy, I can certainly try,” and it comes out…just a little husky.

Pagan closes his eyes.

With an explosion of white smoke and an almost comical pop noise, he’s suddenly standing in front of Ajay again on two bare and human feet. Pagan looks down and grins at his own hands like they’re old friends that he’s missed, but that motion upsets his equilibrium and Ajay has to grab his arm to keep him upright.

The ensuing hot jolt of…something when his palm grips Pagan’s bare skin is unexpected, and before he’s really thought it through or thought about it at all, he runs that hand up his arm, respectfully and studiously not looking _down._

His body is all hard muscle and a lot of scars, old lines where he’s been stitched up and that puckered gouge in his shoulder, but his skin is so soft, almost velvety. He runs his palm across Pagan’s shoulder and smiles at the freckles scattered across it. He brushes his hand across his collarbones and when he touches the even softer, vulnerable skin of his throat he can feel Pagan swallow against his fingers. Swallows, and trembles minutely against him right before Pagan’s big hand clamps down on his.

Fuck, what is _wrong_ with him?

“I’m sorry,” Ajay gets out before Pagan’s eyes meet his, but then it’s his turn to swallow because the look in them is bright and hot and…

Moving slowly and carefully so as to not lose his balance, Pagan slips his arms around him and draws him in, his satiny skin brushing against his as he holds him close, more intimate than just a hug. Something about the way Pagan rubs himself against him a little reminds him of the tiger, as Ajay finds himself clutching at Pagan’s bare back and shivering at that warm contact.

“I’ve been wanting to do this for _ages,_ ” Pagan whispers near his ear. He thought it would be weird, it _should_ feel weird to be touching him like this…but it’s just as comforting as when he’s a tiger. Comforting, and suddenly very, very warm.

Ajay pulls back just a little to see his face better, trying to memorize it; his high cheekbones, the shape of his lips. His warm brown eyes that turn up a little at the corners, the eyeliner or kohl or something that rings them, a thin dark line. A dream within a dream that’s starting to feel hot and hazy and unreal as he runs his hand along the softer line of his belly and up, along his neck to brush his thumb along his bottom lip. Not much thought, just…desire, the sudden sharp desire to press his mouth to his.

Ajay moves slowly, giving him plenty of time to turn away if this isn’t what he wants, but he’s almost certain it is, judging from that molten look still in his eyes, the dark heat there. The way that a warm flush spreads rapidly up his chest and throat, following the path of his hand. His softly indrawn breath as Ajay moves closer still.

“Pagan,” he whispers, nearly against his lips.

This turns out to be a mistake, as the change rushes over Pagan again with that same nearly comical pop, and Ajay finds himself with his fingers buried deep in thick fur. His arms are suddenly full of Pagan the tiger, who weighs nearly four times what Pagan the man does as they both lose their balance and go down in a sprawling heap in the grass.

“Oh, I am so sorry! Have I squashed you, darling? I’ve gone and ruined it, haven’t I, of all the bloody fucking inopportune times to…” This diatribe devolves into grumbling snarls as Pagan scoops him up in his paws and rolls them over so that Ajay’s resting on his furry chest instead of attempting to wriggle out from under him.

And Ajay explodes into choked laughter as the absurdity of the situation strikes him. Lucky for them the crimson grass is springy and the soil under it is soft and loose. He gazes into Pagan’s eyes, the gold light shining down into them turning them tawny.

“Well, I’m glad you think it’s funny,” Pagan mutters. “I certainly don’t, perhaps I was looking _forward_ to that and I…oh…” as Ajay works his fingers into the fur on either side of his broad head, leans forward, and gently kisses his soft, pink nose. He closes his eyes and makes his lips soft and pliant, lets them open just a little so that he can touch the tip of his tongue to it.

Pagan goes very, very still under him.

An easy, almost platonic kiss…except that it’s not, not at all. And they both know it.

“Mmm, truly a shame about that little… _mishap,_ ” Pagan purrs, although he also sounds the tiniest bit breathless. “I’ve no idea why, but I believe it may have something to do with you saying my name.”

Leaning forward again, he lets his breath stir the short inner fur of Pagan’s ear.

“Next time, I’ll make sure not to do that,” he murmurs, and Pagan’s hide ripples under him in a long shivering wave.

Pagan has his mouth open to say something in response when they both freeze. Faint with distance, they both catch the sound of demonic voices, harsh and screeching and gibbering. There’s no way they could have been spotted; rock walls rise well over their heads on either side of the little waterfall, leaving them in a secluded ravine with grass and a few trees. But all the same that sound reminds them viscerally that there is danger, that they have a duty to fulfill in this place, that the bell needs them.

Mood broken, he reluctantly clambers off of Pagan, but not before he gives him a little squeeze and gets one in return from the big downy paws that are still around him.

“I don’t know what this is,” he says softly. “This…whatever this is between us.”

“I know, my dear. I don’t either,” Pagan admits. “All I know is that I feel it too…and I pray that we’ll have the chance to…to figure it out.”

“Yeah,” as he softly strokes Pagan’s ears, and things are easier. Easier for them to focus on what they need to, now that it’s in the open and acknowledged, the…whatever it is, the attraction. Pagan’s tongue darts out to lick his own nose where Ajay’s tongue touched it and it makes him grin.

As they walk away, Ajay looks back at that secluded, cozy spot, already missing it, missing what might have been. But he looks forward to what _could_ be, as he works his fingers down into the fur between Pagan’s shoulders as he chuffs happily in response, as that warm wind gusts again, playfully showering them with bloodred leaves and bringing with it the scent of jasmine.

 

As they draw closer to that weird doorway from earlier, the portal thing, he notices that it’s making a _noise;_ a squidgy, high-pitched sort of whine that he doesn’t care for and Pagan likes even less. He drops his head and rubs it hard against Ajay’s calf with a rumbling groan, his little ears tucked down tightly.

“It hurts, doesn’t it,” he says, and Pagan nods. Ajay rubs at his furled ears. “It’s okay, let’s just…try to go through and get it over with. I think that’s what we’re supposed to do.”

When Ajay puts an exploratory hand through, the colors shift from fiery to a bright gold. He expected heat, maybe just based on the color of that orange shimmer, but it doesn’t feel like that at all. What it feels like is cool water, as he draws his hand back to examine it. Dry and seemingly normal, as he flexes it a few times.

“I think it’ll be okay,” he tells Pagan, and with a deep breath and a squaring of his shoulders, steps through.

This time the portal shifts to a white light too bright to look at, so bright it blots out his vision as he squints. The weird squidgy noise hits a fever pitch that edges to near-pain even for his less-sensitive ears, but both the sound and the light quickly subside. He stands there stupidly in the doorway because he’s now on the next floating island, which he fully expected but it’s still disorienting and…

Barreling through the portal behind him, Pagan crashes into the backs of his knees with a snorted rumble of distaste, knocking him over for the second time in ten minutes.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake not _again,_ I’m sor…” he cries in consternation and Ajay reaches from his position on the ground and slaps a hand over his muzzle to shut him up. Pagan immediately tucks himself low to the ground.

“Izit morra dose muzzerfahkers, muh boy,” Pagan mutters around Ajay’s hand, and he removes it cautiously.

“Yeah, I caught a glimpse of them, just over that little rise over there.”

As it turns out, there are only two, butchering more of the beautiful white deer. Crimson blood splatters and runs over the stones, flowing into the crimson grass and that same righteous _fury_ fills him again, blotting out everything but the dusty blue of the…

_Rakshasa,_ the voice that sounds so like Mom whispers on the wind and Pagan lifts his head, sniffing at the air. He can hear it as well this time. _The demons that plague Paradise. But such as these are mere pawns for another of great power._

“The bird, that _fucking_ demon bird, with the fire,” Pagan spits abruptly.

But the voice seems to have nothing else to offer but that. The word burns brightly in his mind. Rakshasa. Their enemies, as they ambush these two that never even hear their stealthy approach, blue smoke drifting away on the breeze before they even have the chance to scream.

Up another set of stone stairs, and then another that’s part of a big stone edifice made of staircases. They culminate at the top of a gazebo-like structure whose only purpose, as far as he can tell, is to house another portal.

“I have an idea,” Pagan says, after pacing in a circle around it. “Why don’t you ride on my back again? That way we can go through together, and perhaps you might place your hands over my ears? I would appreciate it greatly.” He grimaces, ears already furled tightly against his head.

“Yeah, okay. Sure.” Hoping that he won’t _like_ it as much as he did last time, but there’s little chance of that. Not after…whatever happened back there next to that little stream. Even now, thinking of it makes him warm all over as he swings a leg over Pagan’s back.

It’s just as awkwardly, guiltily good as he remembers.

There’s something about his solid heat between his legs, all that lithe power as Pagan paces around the portal once more, examining it from both sides. Silky fur sliding against him…he heaves a sigh, already at half-mast. Jesus. It would be different if he were wearing pants.

Pagan stops mid-stride and Ajay freezes.

“Oh, I _knew_ it! I suspected that you enjoyed this a little _too_ much,” Pagan crows, and then dissolves into chuffing laughter. He groans and doubles over, burying his burning face between Pagan’s shoulder blades.

“You’re such a prick,” Ajay mumbles into his fur.

“Hmm, perhaps,” he says, still chuckling a little. “But it’s…well, it’s flattering, to tell you the truth. A little _misplaced_ maybe, while I’m in this form, but flattering nonetheless.”

He raises his head to find Pagan gazing back at him over his shoulder. He looks Ajay up and down and the hot spark in his dark eyes is just the same as it was when he was a man, right before Ajay almost kissed him. Bright and intense and twinkling, and there’s something of a promise there too. _Just you wait,_ that look seems to say, as Pagan breaks into a delighted grin.

He must be getting used to all those sharp teeth, because he doesn’t find it disconcerting at all now. Instead, he finds himself grinning right back. Pagan’s ears prick toward him in happy interest, but they immediately flatten again as he grimaces.

“Here, I’ve got you,” Ajay says, leaning forward and clamping his hands gently over his soft ears. Stretching out along his back increases…contact, but since Pagan apparently finds it _flattering_ he tries to push embarrassment aside.

There’s not a lot of room for running on the stone platform itself, but Pagan turns and lopes a few strides to take them through the portal as he holds on tightly with his knees, hands still firmly over Pagan’s ears.

This time they pop out in something that looks like a walled garden, if walled gardens usually floated freely in the sky. Four portals are set into the walls, he notes, as he slides off Pagan’s back. But that’s not what draws his attention. An enormous metal cylinder dominates the space, right in the center.

“What is that thing?” Ajay exclaims in awe. It doesn’t pull at his mind the way the bell did, but he can see that it obviously has some significance. It floats there, immense and inert.

“It’s a _mani_ wheel,” Pagan says, climbing onto the stone platform and rearing up on his back paws to examine it, the front ones placed carefully on the big wheel’s iron side. Standing up that way, he’s at least a couple of feet taller than Ajay.

“What’s a _mani_ wheel? And how do you know that?”

“No idea, my boy! But you spin them because…well, I don’t know exactly why you spin them. Can’t recall it now,” as he drops back to all fours. “But I think that’s what we ought to do.”

Ajay examines it closely. It doesn’t look like any wheel he’s ever seen, but it does have a rough piece of metal sticking out that might work as a handle. He grips it and gives it an experimental tug, and the whole thing moves surprisingly easily under his hand.

“Go on! Give it a good turn,” Pagan says, and so he braces his feet and pulls hard. It spins easily…then faster, and faster on its own, picking up speed. Ajay steps back to avoid the handle flying around as the whole giant iron contrivance floats into the air with a hornlike blast and a shower of scarlet leaves whipped up by the wind it creates. As soon as the wheel sounds, the shimmering patch of air in the distance clears to reveal a giant temple, so tall it seems to scrape the sky.

“Whoa,” he whispers.

It’s obvious to him that one of the three remaining portals will take them to that temple, that their path to the bell leads that way, but…

“Oh fuck me, it’d be bloody easy to get turned around in here,” Pagan mutters, maybe half to himself as he looks around them.

“You’re not kidding.” Ajay carefully makes a one-eighty turn, and right behind them is a portal. He’s _pretty_ sure that’s the one they just came through. He draws his dagger and carefully scratches an ‘X’ on the stones right in front of it. “There. Now we won’t get them mixed up.”

“I think we ought to try the one that’s facing that temple thing.”

“That makes as much sense as anything else,” he agrees, as Pagan uses his claws to make a set of scratches in front of one portal, and then crosses the little courtyard to do the same to the other. That leaves the doorway facing the temple as the only one unmarked. But as he examines that portal, and the others, he realizes something that makes his stomach do a little flip.

“Fuck, I hope they keep working the way they’re supposed to,” Ajay says. “Because I don’t think there’s anything on the other side.”

Pagan stares at him. “Nothing on the other side?” He rears up again and pokes his furry head up and over the stone wall while Ajay keeps an eye on the portals, bow at the ready. He has no idea if the Rakshasa can even use them, but better safe than sorry. When Pagan drops down again to all fours, he visibly shivers all over, his tail fluffing out like a bottle brush.

“Unfortunately, you’re right. Just a sheer drop. And goddamn if it isn’t a long way down,” he says soberly. “A _long_ way down to the water.”

“I don’t know what else we can do though,” as he rubs his chin in thought. “I mean, they’ve both worked so far. At least there _is_ water down there, not solid ground.” He tries to sound optimistic about it for Pagan’s sake.

Pagan doesn’t say anything, just makes a face and growls, low and grumbly in the back of his throat as Ajay climbs on his back and covers his ears again.

“Well, be ready to cliff dive just in case,” Pagan mutters irritably, as he grips him as tightly as he can with no hands. This time Pagan has plenty of room to make a run at the doorway as he backs up and then does just that, a sliding, slinky kind of run with his fur still all bushed out, on red alert.

Ajay braces himself for anything, for demons, for a sickening fall into open air.

Instead, they materialize with a lurch into a stone corridor with open sky above them, and even still moving he can feel Pagan’s sigh of relief, a heaving expansion of his ribs against his legs. And then stops dead, paws scrabbling for purchase on the stone underfoot before he can bring them to a hard sliding halt that nearly sends Ajay over his head.

“Jesus,” he hisses, not in anger but merely adrenaline-fueled surprise as he lets go of Pagan’s ears to cling to the harness instead. He clambers off shakily, a hand on his shoulder and then spots what had him freaked out.

The temple is now right in front of them but the wide stone corridor ends abruptly in a bridgeway made of natural rock. It leads right to the huge golden door, but the path is narrow, with nothing but the open air on either side. It makes him a little dizzy just looking out, let alone down.

After he edges close to the side and takes a peek, he decides that’s enough for him. The drop isn't _that_ far, but there are also…things in the water that he doesn’t like the looks of. Big things.

“Boy,” Pagan rumbles behind him in warning, “if you slip up here _I don’t have hands with which to catch you._ I’d have to use my teeth, you understand?”

“I get you…but it’s not like I can catch you either. You’re fucking heavy.”

Pagan sits and ponders this, a thoughtful look on his face. “Well, that’s so. And I don’t think that either of us can permanently expire here…but I did it once. That whole dying thing. Was a _deeply_ unpleasant experience. Highly unrecommended,” and drops a little wink at him.

Pagan’s tone is cheerful, but as Ajay looks him over he notes that he’s still…fluffier than he should be, especially his tail. His fur all bushed out with nerves. He tries to smooth it down with his hands, mostly in vain.

“I’ll go across first, okay?”

“If you don’t mind terribly,” he says, and butts his head against him, face nuzzling against his stomach. Ajay buries his fingers into the soft fur behind his ears, working them in just how he likes.

But it turns out to not be too bad. Ajay drops to a crouch, readjusts the bow and quiver on his back and goes across that way, right up the middle. With his center of gravity lower it’s not so nerve wracking, and the wind drops for once. He was concerned about it pushing at him, but it’s as calm as can be, and stays that way as Pagan waits until he’s all the way across to start himself. He had wondered why; it’s way too narrow to walk abreast but it’s also not like a rickety bridge  
that might not support all their weight at once. He wonders until he sees the way he decides to do it, in a fast, slinking rush to get it over with as quickly as possible. It reminds him of a housecat freaked the fuck out by something stuck to its tail and he has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing at him.

The door to the temple is much like the one that was set in the immense waterfall: large and golden and imposing, with the same sideways eye design on it. As they approach warily, the braziers on either side of the stairs light themselves and the door slides open for them.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to that,” he mutters, readying his bow.

 

Like everything else in this world, the inside of the temple is beautiful. He expected it to be a warren of rooms but the whole inside is one giant open space, with stone screens carved so delicately it looks like lacework to let in the gold light from outside. A fountain runs with red water, lotus growing in the pool underneath like bright gems. The beauty of it all is unfortunately marred by the bodies of more sacrificial animals and he clenches his teeth at the blood all over the floor, at the head mounted there right in front of the doorway.

The Rakshasa themselves roaming around inside are like a pollution.

The metal masks they wear don’t prevent Ajay’s arrows from punching cleanly through their heads, as Pagan pads up on silent paws and drags another down the stairs by an ankle, silencing its squalling with that massive bite.

Unfortunately, that alarms a demon that neither of them had seen, one who pops up from behind a stone banister and before he can shout a warning, fires at Pagan.

The arrow slams into his side with a sickening thud and Pagan goes down with a pained yowl that has him charging from cover at the doorway. The Rakshasa already has another arrow nocked and bow drawn, ready to loose it at Pagan when he skids to a stop and bellows to get its attention.

“Hey, _shithead!_ ”

The archer jerks, startled, and turns to face him just as his own arrow takes it through the throat.

Crimson blooms quickly from around the arrow in Pagan’s side, already staining his beautiful pale coat as Ajay drops to his knees beside him. He’s seen him far more grievously injured than this, but that was…before. And it had hurt even then, to see him wounded and in pain, his blood all over those stones and mixing with the water. He touches him gently and observes how the arrow is buried almost to the feathers. It must have gone in between his ribs, judging from Pagan’s labored breathing.

“Go ahead, go ahead and pull it, it’s all right. I didn’t bite you the first time and I won’t now.” Pagan’s voice is croaking and weak, but he manages to smile. And then gives him a little up and down glance. “Not _hard,_ anyway.”

“So not funny,” he mutters, as he braces his splayed fingers around the arrow’s shaft and pulls as smoothly as he can. Pagan still growls, his claws scoring the stone floor as he flings the gory arrow to the side and claps his hand over the hole, pressing down.

Fortunately, it only takes a minute or two before Pagan’s breathing eases and he relaxes under his hands with a gusting sigh. When he lifts his palm from the wound he can almost see the flesh knitting itself back together and he silently thanks whatever deity or magic or whatever it is that works to heal them in this place.

“I think I’m all right now,” Pagan says, as he heaves himself shakily to his feet, and it’s Ajay’s turn to sigh in relief.

 

The portal on the other side of the temple is situated on the edge of a crumbling cliff, the stone path ending abruptly as if all these floating islands were once connected. He can see where this one goes, shading his eyes: right across the gap from this island to the next one.

“Either these things are causing me to go deaf or I’ve merely gotten used to the bloody awful sound they make,” Pagan says beside him.

“Does that mean you don’t want me to ride you through and cover your ears this time?”

“Not unless you really _want_ to,” as he drops an exaggerated wink.

Ajay rolls his eyes. “You’re such an asshole. You’re never going to let me live that down, are you?”

“Oh, assuredly not, my boy. Never in your life!” Pagan’s booming, chuffing laugh still makes him feel warm in the middle, even though it’s a little at his expense.

This time, when they come out of the portal, the pull of the bell goes from a niggling at the back of his mind to something far more insistent. It’s right in front of them now, jerking pitifully against the chains holding it down.

This time, it’s far more well-guarded.

This time is going to be fucking hard, Ajay decides, carefully peering out from behind the stone pillar they’ve ducked behind. There’s just so many of the Rakshasa; the big fire guys, archers, and a ton of the ones that just phase in and out and charge, stabbing wildly. Patrolling. _Watching for them,_ he realizes. The thing that controls them realizes what they’re up to now, their plan to free the bells.

Maybe it even knows about how they are both _drawn_ to the bells, as it tugs insistently at him. So hard to be patient and observe the patterns, to form a plan of attack when the bell is right there in sight. A quick sprint and they could _be_ there, cutting it loose, giving it freedom…

Pagan pads out from behind their cover, entranced, and Ajay has to grab him and yank him back. It’s like pulling at a statue for all the good it does, but the sharp tugging at his fur is enough to snap him out of his daze.

“Easy, easy. We’ll get there,” he reassures Pagan, even as he wants nothing more than to bolt over there himself. He’s just about to move to the next bit of cover when he freezes.

“What in the hell…” Pagan mutters beside him. One of the demons patrolling has what looks vaguely like a dog walking with it, a dusty, dead-looking zombie dog. As they watch, it turns horrible, empty black eye sockets their way. It stops and lifts its nose, seemingly sniffing at the air like it can _smell_ them as Pagan tenses beside him. The demon with it snaps out a guttural command and the awful thing trots off to catch up.

“When it comes around again, you take the archer and I’ll take the…whatever that thing is,” Pagan whispers. He waits until the pair circles back on their route, until they walk near a low stone wall that will hopefully keep the other demons from spotting their friends being dispatched.

The archer he kills easily with one well-placed shot, and the dog thing is half Pagan’s size and no match for him. A hard swipe with one massive paw sends it tumbling, neck broken. Ajay expects the body to dissipate in a puff of blue powder as he keeps the bow at the ready…but it doesn’t, only smokes gently. There’s also a sound that he’s never heard here before, one that’s jarringly familiar. It takes him a second to place it.

The hiss of a lit fuse.

“Pagan, PAGAN!! GET AWA…” is all he has time to get out, as the Rakshasa in the distance all lift their heads in their direction. Pagan turns half towards him in alarm.

The thing’s body detonates with enough explosive force to blow Pagan clean off his feet, yowling as he goes. The shockwave of it gusts across him in a hot shower of grit that he has to shield his eyes from.

If there was any way any of the demons weren’t alerted by his screaming, they sure are now, Ajay thinks in dismay. Luckily, Pagan doesn’t seem to be injured too badly, already picking himself up and only smoldering a little, but demonic screeches fill the air, along with gouts of fire.

“Oh _shit,_ ” Ajay whispers, as the Rakshasa rush them, howling for blood.

 

***


	6. A Vast Ocean

***

 

The bell beats at their minds as surely as the demons beat at their bodies.

Pagan gets the worst of it as usual, shot at in a rain of arrows that he darts away from with a hissing snarl, stabbed at by the ones with knives that phase into existence nearby and charge him with a screaming rush. Ajay tries to shove down that _pulling_ that’s starting to feel like fucking sandpaper in his head and does his best to cover him, sending his own arrows just above Pagan’s ears.

This island has some high vantage points and the Rakshasa archers take prime advantage of it as their arrows clatter off the stones around him. Effectively pinned down, he brings down another dog that makes a beeline for Pagan. If he just shoots them at range they don’t explode, but if he hits the bodies with a second arrow or Pagan smacks at them, they blow sky high.

They learned that the hard way.

Using the stone walls as cover, he’s able to pop up and loose his own arrow at one of the Rakshasa up on the rocks. It screeches as it plummets off the edge of the height, puffing into smoke halfway down and he bares his teeth in savage satisfaction.

In all the chaos, he loses track of the fire bull things. One of them pops out from behind the central plaza’s stonework. Far too close to Pagan as it plods along towards him, slow but inexorable. He curses under his breath at his own carelessness as he fires at its head to distract it, not that it works that well. He can pepper the thing with arrows all he wants, but it takes his dagger buried in its fat neck to bring them down.

Pagan takes another two Rakshasa, giving himself some maneuvering room.

“Get ready with your bow, my boy,” he calls out, way too jovial for the circumstances. “I have an _idea!_ ”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Ajay mutters under his breath, but nocks an arrow in preparation for Pagan’s cue to shoot…something.

Pagan carefully scoops up the corpse of a demon dog in his mouth and his heart slams up into his throat. Especially since there are still archers, as he fires at one that pops up from cover and quickly has another arrow ready. An arrow from a different direction strikes Pagan in the shoulder and Ajay sucks in a breath. Nearly spent with distance so it doesn’t do much damage, but entirely too close to the _bomb_ he’s carrying in his mouth.

Ajay stares with something akin to horror as Pagan turns and charges the bull with reckless abandon, the _idiot._ But he suddenly understands, as Pagan darts out of the way of a stream of flame, plants his paws, and with a neat twist of his body flings the corpse of the demon.

Ajay arrow meets it in mid-air, right in the bull thing’s face.

The ensuing explosion is forceful enough to blow it halfway across the island, already dissolving in the breeze, and he sighs in relief.

Just in time to see two more make their way down the steps right in front of the bell, bellowing and spitting fire as they go.

No element of surprise this time, no real cover as they are forced to rush the last two guardians. This time, when they try to get close enough it’s him that gets caught in the fireball aimed at them, his turn to yelp and cry as he beats the flames off himself. He frantically rakes his hands down his forearms as Pagan roars his fury, ear-splittingly loud even as he himself is on fire, everything on fire around them and him stabbing blindly for their ugly wrinkled necks. Desperate to not to hit Pagan in the process, who seems to be everywhere at once. Spitting and snarling and attempting to protect him, putting his body between Ajay and the flames.

Eventually, the last one goes down and that blue dust paints the stones as he crawls weakly away, too injured to even feel a sense of triumph. Very nearly a disaster. Either the grass and trees here are redder somehow or something’s wrong with his eyes as he finds a pile of soft leaves and collapses onto it. He wonders just when it was that it got so cold. Pagan, where’s Pagan? Stupid, reckless, brave Pagan.

“I’m right here, dearest,” a rough voice croaks beside him. He had no idea he’d said that out loud. Rolling over, he reaches weakly for Pagan and he settles against him, covered with blood. Ajay grasps one of the arrows puncturing his hide. It isn’t in deep, but as he’s drawing it out his bloody fingers slip and Pagan grunts in pain.

“I’m so sorry,” Ajay whispers. “It’ll stop hurting soon. It never hurts for long here.” He presses his face into Pagan’s ruff, trying not to tremble as Pagan licks at his arm weakly. “It’s all right,” he whispers again, wondering which of them he’s trying to convince. The two of them make a raw and pained lump but they huddle together anyway as Ajay rubs the downy fur behind his ear with his thumb, trying to soothe, desperate for the healing to happen.

Slowly, the pain does begin to ease and Ajay sits up and breathes out in sheer relief once it fades enough. Pink new skin covers his arms and legs as the amulet warms the skin of his chest, as the warm gold light drives the last of the chill away. Pagan stretches and flops onto his side with a happy sound, and then rolls over all the way, exposing the snowy white of his underside. He wriggles in the leaves as if scratching an itch, and it looks so funny, his face scrunched up in relief that he flops over too, right across him. He drapes himself over all that soft fur with a sigh, rubbing his face against his chest.

“Ajay,” Pagan says softly, and then pauses for a long time. When he speaks again, his voice is even quieter. “When we free the bell…will I lose you again, darling boy?” Ajay’s heart twists a little in his chest at the thought. He holds onto him tighter, doing his best to ignore that sandpapery feeling rubbing at his mind.

“I don’t know,” he has to admit. “But if it happens, I’ll find you again, okay? No matter what, I’ll always come find you,” as Pagan’s paws hold him close, as he nuzzles at him.

 

Eventually they have to separate, the pull of the bell simply too strong to bear.

They walk towards it together at a measured pace, drawn inexorably to it but not wanting their time to end. He works his fingers into the fur between Pagan’s shoulders, not wanting to let him go. Ajay draws the knife from his waistband and kneels in front of the big ring securing the chains. Pagan sits down beside him, neatly wrapping his tail around his feet. He holds him close with his free arm around him.

“No sense in putting it off any longer,” Pagan says, then sighs.

Ajay sighs too and cards his fingers through his fur.

“No, I guess you’re right,” and with all the strength in his arm brings the blade down and strikes the bell free.

Just like before, the bell spins faster and faster in a rush of windblown leaves and booms its triumphant note, rejoicing it its freedom.

Unlike last time, a hideous shrieking answers it, and Pagan gasps beside him.

The bird…thing that swoops down towards them is _enormous,_ big enough to block out the sun, and Pagan roars at it in rage. But there’s a note of fear in it too. A thrumming tremor runs through him under his hand, and as his fingers find that terrible scar in his shoulder he throws himself in front of Pagan without thinking.

The bell booms again, a long resonant horn blast of sound that vibrates through his entire body in an oddly pleasant way. But the bird certainly doesn’t like it, and as it levels off from its dive and screeches again, this time it sounds distinctly pained.

“That’s right…eat _shit,_ you motherfuck,” Ajay mutters under his breath. The Rakshasa banks hard and heads back presumably the way it came. He didn’t notice it before, but off in the distance, so far that it’s barely darker than the horizon is an immense stone spire, and the great bird makes a beeline for it.

“That was it, boy,” Pagan says darkly. “That’s the thing that controls these other…things. _The_ Rakshasa. Our _true_ enemy.”

“The thing that hurt you so badly, that left this behind,” he says, but he already knows the answer, even before Pagan nods. He gazes at the dagger still in his hand and slowly secures it back in his waistband again.

They stand there together looking out at the golden horizon, the expanse of water, the merrily spinning bell, and wait to be kicked out of their little piece of Paradise.

But nothing happens.

“I suppose we’ll get to stay a bit longer then,” Pagan says, quiet and thoughtful. He’s been quiet ever since that fucking bird made an appearance and he doesn’t like it. Prefers his bright, silly tiger. Ajay strokes his head and tugs at his earring playfully, leans forward and attempts to grab the end of his tail with his toes, hoping to make him laugh.

He gets more than he bargained for when Pagan suddenly rears up on his back legs, head way above his. A tiny frisson of fear runs through him, just at his sheer size, his immense strength that could so easily crush him if he neglected to keep it in check. A throwback to bygone days when big animals like him stalked and ate littler animals like himself. Pagan reaches for him and he does his best not to flinch away.

But what Pagan does is merely bat at his face and shoulders, feather-light touches of his huge but downy paws, like being buffeted by wings. All soft and tickling and it surprises a laugh out of him as he lowers himself back to all fours…and takes off like a shot. Pagan throws a big grin back over his shoulder at him, and the message is clear: _Chase me, boy. Catch me…if you can._

He should be used to Pagan’s mercurial moods by now, like the sun after a rain shower as he darts after him.

What follows is a merry race around the entirety of the island as they chase each other, skidding around low stone walls and under trees and across the soft red grass, all the while the tip of Pagan’s striped tail just out of his reach. A burst of speed and fur brushes the very ends of his fingers even as Pagan whips it away and increases his lead. Even the wind gusts playfully, showering them with leaves.

When he rounds a corner Pagan is suddenly there, rearing up again and this time it’s not frightening at all as they collide and go tumbling end over end, his paws wrapping protectively around him, the sound of their mingled laughter in his ears.

No past, no future, or sorrow, or grief as they roll across the sun-warmed grass; only this place, only right now. They come to a stop under a tree in another pile of crimson leaves, crackling and fragrant. He rests his head on Pagan’s chest, getting his breath back.

With a loud pop and a puff of white smoke Pagan turns human under him. He sits up with a start, waving it away from his face.

There’s no transition, no melting from one form to another. Pagan is a tiger, and then suddenly _isn’t_ as he finds himself just as suddenly straddling his bare hips, bare everything. He swallows hard.

“You’re already getting better at that,” Ajay says, with only a little shake in his voice.

In a mirror of what Ajay did before, Pagan runs his hands up his arms and along his shoulders, as if admiring the texture of his skin and he breaks out in shivery goosebumps. His hands are very warm as they caress his chest and circle his bellybutton and slide back up, stoking that little frisson of heat in him.

Pagan reaches to gently cup his face, thumbs brushing across his cheekbones as he works his fingers into his unruly hair. That look is back in his dark eyes, bright and hot and sparkling, his lips already flushed.

“Kiss me,” he whispers.

And when Ajay leans forward slowly, dreamily, and finally touches his mouth to Pagan’s, the sensation is exactly like the hot jolt that shot through him the first time he touched his bare skin…but magnified tenfold.

Pagan’s lips part under his, opening for him immediately.  As he slides his hands under his shoulders to cradle his head, Pagan tightens his fingers in his hair with something that feels a little like desperation, like a man starving.

Suddenly they’re wrestling together to get closer, closer, tongue sliding against his hot and wonderful and it fills his whole mind, no thinking beyond _warm_ and _good_ and _yes, this, with him._ He squeezes the nape of Pagan’s neck with what might be a little desperation of his own, probably too hard but he groans into Ajay’s mouth and arches up under him. Nothing between them but thin cloth that does little to diminish the heated friction that generates…

…Pagan jerks back as if burnt.

“No, _no,_ ” he whispers, and as Ajay sits up it’s only then that he sees the gold mist that has been creeping up on them, flowing around them, and realizes what that means.

He looks down into Pagan’s face, dappled with gold light and leaf shadow. Striking, but his eyes are full of something that aches.

Ajay smiles gently even as that look reverberates in his own chest. “Don’t worry,” he murmurs, leaning forward again to press their foreheads together. “I’ll find you again, okay? I always will.”

Pagan kisses him again, a soft, sweet nudge of his lips…and lets him go, lets his hands fall away.

“Until then, lovely boy,” he murmurs roughly, already sounding as if he’s so far away as the mist overtakes them, pulls them apart, shoves them back to opposite sides of a vast ocean.

 

Ajay wakes to bright sunlight in his face, in the wrong bed. In the few moments it takes him to remember where he is, the dream quickly grows cloudy in his mind, nearly out of reach so fast. But he gets up and digs around in his backpack for his notepad and flips past his drawings to the page with his notes and the dates.

  _10-8-14 (they’re happening more often, less time in between)_

_This dream had a really big waterfall and a lot of those floating islands and…glowing doorways? I can’t remember why they were glowing. I found a bow in a cave and Pagan hugged me because I told him about Mom and then we killed a bunch of those things. Rakshasa. I don’t know what that means but I remember that word. And there were explosions for some reason, and fire, and Pagan got hurt but he was okay. No, we both got hurt but we healed up. He kept turning into a person though. I remember his face, remember touching it. He hugged me again._

_I think I made out with him?_

 Pretty sad that he’s this lonely, as he sketches a little picture of the islands, that he’s made up this entire world to escape to and this…whatever this guy is. A talking tiger that’s sometimes a person that also says he’s a king, which doesn’t make any sense. Not that a lot of this does. There’s maybe a real king or two still over in, like, Burma or Nepal or something, somewhere over in Southeast Asia, but the only king that _he_ knows anything about is Elvis. And the fact that his name is _Pagan._ That’s possibly the dumbest part; it’s not like that’s even a real name that anyone would use.

These rational thoughts don’t stop him from missing him all the same, with a dull ache. He suddenly remembers the sensation of fingers wound into his hair, tugging slightly. His flushed lips, sunlight dappling his face.

Ajay picks up his pencil and adds another line.

  _No, I definitely made out with him._

 

That good but nebulous memory helps carry him through the day, keeps him dry-eyed when he has to go to the hospital and the courthouse and the bank. Task after bureaucratic task to complete and missing her so badly it does much more than just ache a little, it _burns._

Exhaustion drags at him, but he thinks about Pagan’s arms around him and holding him close, warm and solid. Like something real.

 

***

 

At the top of an icy mountain on what feels like the edge of the world, Pagan’s eyes snap open. He explodes up out of the bed and seizes the hand that’s on his shoulder and torques it sharply before he even realizes where he is or who he has hold of, completely disoriented even as his other hand flies to the knife he keeps tucked between the nightstand and the mattress. A twisting shove in a haze of adrenaline drops the intruder to the floor beside the bed with him on top, astride him with the blade pressing into his throat before a single coherent thought enters his mind. Before he realizes that the man is one of his soldiers. A rather young one, as the man cries out in shock and pain.

But then the rage kicks in at being unceremoniously yanked back _here,_ to this fucking miserable place by this little _asshole_ …teeth bared, his hand trembles with the effort of not just forcing the blade through the flesh of his throat.

Until he looks down into his eyes.

Dark Kyrati eyes, so much like _his_ eyes, and so much raw terror in the depths of them that it hurts. Causes him actual pain, a confused pang in his chest that he can’t make sense of. Bewildered, he pulls the knife away, leaving a thin, trickling red line.

“You’re not him,” he whispers, and winces at both the stupidity of that statement and the way his voice shakes. He rubs a hand across his face and slowly backs away from where he was bodily crushing the soldier against the floor, just then realizing he is clad only in his underwear. “Are you all right, boy,” he asks in consternation. “I apologize for that, I…you startled me, is all.” Understatement of the century perhaps, as he observes the heavy drops roll down his sweating throat to stain his uniform collar with dark red. 

The man pushes himself to his feet and quivers wordlessly, and _man_ is being generous; he can’t be more than nineteen or twenty. Pagan watches as he trembles all over…then staggers a few steps away from him, shoves the balcony door open and throws up violently all over the deck.

Some feeling settles heavily in the in the pit of his stomach, heavier with each passing second, and it takes him a moment to identify it as some sort of shame. He walks off with a sigh to retrieve yesterday’s, today’s, whenever’s crumpled trousers from the floor. No idea what time it even is, as he pulls on a singlet as well and gathers up the first-aid kit. Pours a glass of water for the boy.

When he comes back, the kid is on one knee and holding out the reports that he requested be brought to him, day or night. His face is still greenish-gray under his tan as the papers tremble in his outstretched hand.

Pagan sighs again.

“Get up and drink this,” he says roughly, taking them from him and tossing them on the desk. “You…you did as I asked and can hardly be faulted for it.” He drags the desk chair back out. “Here, sit down, you look like absolute shit.”

The soldier does so and drinks his water dutifully. He knows how to follow orders, you can say that for him. To the punctilious, frustrating letter. Pagan rubs at his face tiredly and pops the latches on the kit. The boy stares at him in shock when he gets out the gauze and the antiseptic and attempts to clean him up a little.

“ _Honestly,_ it’s like you lot think that I’m some sort of monster or something…actually, no, maybe don’t answer that,” he says ruefully, wiping at the shallow cut. “Ah, no worse than a papercut really! Won’t even need a bandage, I don’t think. Hold that on there a moment.” He grabs the boy’s hand and presses it into place. His eyes grow less familiar the more he looks at him, but he impulsively reaches out, places his hand on his cheek and brushes a thumb over his cheekbone. No idea why. Maybe to see if he might feel the same, warm skin under his fingers.

But he flinches from his touch. Minutely, but it’s there. He lets his hand drop.

Pagan suddenly wants him the fuck out of his sight, wants him out and _gone,_ a visceral reaction a little startling in its intensity. He meant to grab the kid’s elbow in order to throw him out but if he touches him again, he might just start _hitting_ instead. He forces his balled fists into his pockets. Sucks in a deep breath.

_You’re not a monster. You’re not._

“I think you’re fine now,” he says brusquely, “and I’m sure you have duties and all that to attend to.” Thankfully the boy gets to his feet without further prompting. Smart lad. “Tell me,” as he leads the way to the door, “who is your commanding officer…is it Yang? Tell him that I’m upping you a pay grade. Have him call me if he has any questions,” and gently shoos the boy out when it’s clear that he’s not going to fall over. 

Perhaps he can curl up in his big soft bed and go back _there_ again. Back to _him._ But he senses somehow that he wouldn’t be able to. The memory of that place he so wanted to stay in is all but gone, leaving only a nebulous sort of…heat in its wake. A hazy impression of his eyes, his mouth on his, a hand gripping the back of his neck.

A deep yearning.

His life seldom awards him anything that he actually cares to have, as he gathers up the requested and undoubtedly critical reports. They’ll have something to do with his little Yuma problem, which is beginning to seriously annoy him.

Scratch that. He ought to be honest with himself at least, if no one else. The truth is that it’s beginning to frighten him.

Pagan carries the reports out to the living room and slaps them down on the coffee table in disgust, opens one at random and reads a few pages. Slams it shut again, eyes narrowed. He eyes the portrait on the far wall in distain as he walks over to the tiny kitchen in his quarters and pours himself a drink. Prithendra, King Prithendra, he remembers. That’s the name of his rather quiet conversation partner. He looked it up on his phone in fitful interest once, even knowing that he wouldn’t really remember it.

Back to the coffee table, back to the tiled floor of the kitchen, back and forth in front of the painting; he can’t seem to stay _still,_ wearing a path into the old carpet with his pacing. Finally just has to force himself to stop and collapses on the couch.

“Well, it seems as if Yuma’s finally made her decision,” he announces to Prithendra. “I thought she might waffle about it for a few more years…but she’s finally grown a pair. Can you _believe_ the sheer ingratitude though?” He runs a hand carelessly back through his hair, his agitation at odds with his tone. “Oh, she doesn’t know that I know about her plans for her little coup, of course. We’ll just keep that fact between you and I, hmm?”

He’s up and pacing again before he realizes he was going to do it, pacing the confines of his gilded cage. Like a tiger in a zoo, half sanctuary, half jail. The half-remembered sensation of moving on four paws comes to him unbidden, along with a touch of vertigo. He shakes his head irritably to clear it.

“Between you and I, if we’re being _confessional,_ ” he mutters, “perhaps I ought to just…let Yuma do as she pleases. Let her come and kill me. Between her and the Golden Path, it’s all beginning to feel a bit inevitable, really. Paul, now _Paul_ would side with me…I think. Noore won’t, oh no. Not with De Pleur around. It’s all falling down around my ears.”

Pagan barks a humorless laugh and sends the stack of reports flying with a shove of his bare foot, enjoying for a brief moment the way they flutter across the carpet. A swirl of chaos in his tidy living room. Not really his, though. He’s just been borrowing it for nearly thirty years, nothing more than a bloodstained, bad-tempered squatter.

It suddenly and forcefully occurs to him that dead men can’t dream, at least not in the conventional sense. Not that there’s anything remotely conventional about those dreams. But if he just rolls over and allows Yuma’s little insurrection to run its course, he can’t very well expect to continue having any sort of dreams at all, now can he?

All he’ll be is food for the worms.

Spurred on by the thought of losing that place, losing _him,_ Pagan strides over to the mess of papers and grabs a few sheets, flips them over, and starts scribbling down plans. As he works, he finds himself absently rubbing at his own nape. He grips it experimentally, letting his fingers dig in a little, and shivers.

 

As it turns out, Pagan doesn’t have long to wait. If he had been keeping track of it and not relying on his admittedly fallible memory, he too would have realized that the time between dreams is speeding up. After four _stressful_ days of planning how not to be murdered and staying relatively sober, he falls asleep nearly as soon as head touches the pillow for a welcome change. He closes his eyes with a sigh.

And opens them in another world.

 

***

**Author's Note:**

> As always, suggestions/comments/ideas welcome!


End file.
